An American Chocolate

It took a coffee grinder, a mortar and pestle, a Mixmaster and a blow dryer, among other things, to make the first batches of Scharffen Berger chocolate two years ago. Out of those San Francisco kitchen experiments, Robert Steinberg and John Scharffenberger created an American chocolate company that follows few of the rules of conventional chocolate making in this country. Modeling their product instead on old-line French and Belgian chocolates and following their own strong sense of what they wanted their chocolate to taste like, Steinberg and Scharffenberger came up with a cooking chocolate so distinctive that non-cooks are grabbing up blocks of the stuff and eating them like candy bars.

It is perhaps a sign of our changing national palate, gravitating away from the super-sweet, that Scharffen Berger’s bittersweet bars, with 70% cacao, sell so well. And the company’s unsweetened bars, with an astonishing 99% cacao, are so successful that the company’s Web site notes that the factory is sold out of those bars because of overwhelming demand.

“It melts on the palate and feels like the finest eating chocolate,” writes chocolate guru Alice Medrich of the unsweetened bar in her Internet tasting notes for Global Gourmet. “Although it is unsweetened, there is absolutely no harshness.”

Thanks in good part to years of molten Valrhona chocolate cakes on restaurant menus (made with the French chocolate brand that was the foodie favorite through the ‘80s and early ‘90s), American chocolate is moving away from the aesthetic so firmly planted by Milton S. Hershey in 1894.

There certainly is more competition for gourmet chocolate dollars. Other companies are gaining ground on the turf Valrhona, Lindt and a few other lightly distributed European brands had to themselves not long ago. Hawaiian Vintage Chocolate and Venezuela’s El Rey are two companies that have emerged to win the allegiance of selected chefs across the country. But by far the biggest buzz among chefs and plugged-in food lovers surrounds Scharffen Berger chocolate.

“It’s funny; most people in the chocolate business don’t get what we’re doing at all,” says Scharffenberger over a plate of swordfish at Nic’s in Beverly Hills. “Gary Guittard [of San Francisco’s multi-generational Guittard Chocolate Co.] is one of the few who have been friendly and helpful. Most people told us we’d never make money and that our hands-on methods [carefully picking cocoa beans, roasting the beans using taste as a guide instead of a timer] just aren’t done here in this country. The chocolate industry is still stuck in the era that the wine business was pre-Mondavi. It changed only when people said, ‘Hey, let’s make our product to a world standard. Let’s not settle.’ ”

This isn’t the first time John Scharffenberger has made a splash in the food world by ignoring industry conventional wisdom. When he couldn’t find strawberries in the supermarket with strong strawberry flavor, he decided to grow his own old-fashioned varieties. He ended up growing more than 150,000 pounds of fruit per year on just over two acres in Mendocino County.

In 1981, he invested his strawberry profits in the wine business. He was fed up with the California sparkling wines being produced at the time. He considered them bland and gutless and he thought he could do better.

“We were able to make a little company that was all-American but had as its Holy Grail a sparkling wine with the flavor characteristics of French Champagne,” Scharffenberger says. “Roederer Estate was getting started at the same time, so there was a group of us thinking the same way. The sparkling wine industry went through a phase of trying to push itself into taking greater risks with flavor.”

Ignoring California wine experts is what made the difference for Scharffenberger. “The first few years I was listening too much to the guys I had hired,” he says. “When I finally started overruling them, the wine started tasting good and suddenly we started selling like crazy.”

Scharffenberger built up the reputation and profits of his company and then cashed out. Veuve Clicquot now owns Scharffenberger Cellars.

Robert Steinberg had also freed himself of his daily commitments as a physician practicing family medicine by the time he teamed up with Scharffenberger. The two had been neighbors during Scharffenberger’s strawberry days, then kept in touch when Steinberg moved to San Francisco because Steinberg was Scharffenberger’s physician.

In late 1990, however, Steinberg was diagnosed with lymphoma. He decided to give up his practice and put his energy into enjoying the rest of his life.

“He told me, ‘I’m quitting my practice. I’m going to die,’ ” Scharffenberger recalls. He didn’t die. “I’d have to go to restaurant parties to sell wine, and there he’d be at all the top restaurants, always with a new girl. He started taking cooking classes. He traveled.”

“It was a period where I was trying to do things that pleased me at the time,” Steinberg says during a reporter’s visit to the company’s South San Francisco factory.

A few years later, Steinberg became restless and started looking for a project to consume his attention. A friend who was a coffee roaster had been thinking about getting into the chocolate business but was having trouble figuring out the science of making chocolate. He thought Steinberg, with his medical training, might understand the process. Steinberg, who had never considered himself a chocolate fanatic, got a book on the subject and became intrigued, then slowly seduced by the subject. He quizzed every food person he came across about chocolate, he took courses, in which he found there was little information to be shared beyond how to cut production costs, and he became obsessed with apprenticing at what he considered the world chocolate mecca, the Bernachon house of chocolate in Lyon, France.

In 1995, after an exchange of several letters and some negotiations--Steinberg wanted to work for a month; Bernachon whittled that down to two weeks--the company decided that the former doctor was probably harmless and said he could visit.

“It just so happened that the week that I arrived, the person who was in charge of making the chocolate was on vacation,” Steinberg says. “His assistant was running that part of the factory and they needed help. They needed a body. So I immediately got to work. I was doing menial tasks--I helped clean beans; I weighed them--but I was doing things that are crucial to understanding the process. If I had come a week later when this guy was back from vacation, I don’t think I would have gotten to have done nearly as much.”

Steinberg came away determined to make chocolate. But he had no real business experience and he was having little luck attracting a partner with the marketing savvy needed to launch a new gourmet food company.

By chance, he and Scharffenberger got to talking about the chocolate project. Scharffenberger figured that at most he’d do some consulting for Steinberg, nothing major. Then Steinberg took a small piece of Bernachon chocolate out of his pocket and offered it to Scharffenberger.

“I took a bite of it and said, ‘My God! That’s just incredible.’ The fruit wasn’t like any fruit I knew. I was stunned at the great flavor. I looked over his paperwork for about 20 minutes and then said, ‘Do you need a partner?’ And it all started over a bite of Bernachon.”

In October 1996, they rented warehouse space. By the spring of 1997, equipment was in place and experimental batches were complete--including several made before the equipment arrived by grinding the beans with a mortar and pestle over a burner, then combining the cocoa with sugar in a Mixmaster with a blow dryer aimed at the chocolate to keep it liquid.

These days, it’s not uncommon to find Steinberg and Scharffenberger taking strangers through their operation, perhaps engaging in a friendly debate over roasting times.

Each casually grabs a bean from the roaster and takes a bite.

“What do you think?” Scharffenberger asks.

“I think these need just a tiny bit more time,” Steinberg says.

“It has a real nice flavor, though.”

“Even here you can begin to taste a bit of the fruitiness,” Steinberg tells a visitor. “But they need to crumble a little more easily. They need a little more time.

“The problem is that there are no hard and fast rules,” Steinberg continues. “You can start out with some guidelines about temperature, and we do, but then there are other factors that aren’t controllable. What we’re trying to do here is eliminate the nature of the acidity in the bean. Of course, if it’s over-roasted, it will carbonize and taste a little bit like burnt toast.”

“It’s really a question of taste,” Scharffenberger adds.

“And that was the thing that threw us off in the beginning,” Steinberg says. “We kept thinking that someone knew how to do this and we couldn’t find anyone among the ‘experts’ who did.”

“You get to the point where you have to trust your instincts.”

Steinberg grabs another bean and takes a bite. He nods and hands some beans to Scharffenberger and their visitor. “You can taste at the very end that little bit of sweetness. On one side of the line it’s not there, on the other side of the line it is. That’s what I finally learned.”

Scharffen Berger chocolate is sold at Southern California Gelsons, Mayfair, Peets and HomeChef stores and will soon be sold at Bristol Farms and Whole Foods. Many restaurants, small food shops and high-end wine stores also sell the chocolate, among them the Wine Exchange in Orange, La Brea Bakery in Los Angeles and Surfas in Culver City. For chocolate by mail, call (800) 930-4528. For more information, a full list of retail locations or to schedule a tour of the South San Francisco factory, check the company’s Web site at https://www.scharffen-berger.com.

Scooter’s Baked Hot Chocolate

Active Work Time: 20 minutes * Total Preparation Time: 45 minutes

Scooter Canter presented this dessert to John Scharffenberger when he ate lunch one day at Nic’s in Beverly Hills, where she was cooking until recently (she’s planning to open her own restaurant soon). She came up with the idea when she couldn’t find ramekins for individual chocolate souffles. She used coffee mugs instead and turned her souffles into baked hot chocolate.

10 ounces semisweet chocolate, chopped

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter plus extra for preparing cups

5 eggs, separated, plus 1 egg white

2/3 cup sugar plus extra for preparing cups

3 ounces bittersweet chocolate, cut into 6 equal pieces

1 cup whipped cream

* Melt semisweet chocolate and butter in top of double boiler over simmering water. Set aside and keep warm.

* Beat egg yolks and 1/3 cup sugar with electric mixer until thick and ribbony, 2 to 3 minutes. Stir yolk mixture into melted chocolate mixture.

* Whip egg whites, adding remaining 1/3 cup sugar a little at a time, until stiff and creamy. Fold into chocolate mixture.

* Fill buttered and sugared coffee cups 3/4 full with chocolate mixture. Place 1 chunk bittersweet chocolate in center of each cup. Bake at 350 degrees until souffles are puffed and just beginning to crack, 15 to 20 minutes.

6 servings. Each serving: 734 calories; 230 mg sodium; 323 mg cholesterol; 57 grams fat; 57 grams carbohydrates; 10 grams protein; 0.72 gram fiber.

Chocolate Corks

Active Work Time: 25 minutes * Total Preparation Time: 1 hour 10 minutes

Campanile’s Nancy Silverton describes these as “cupcakes for grown-ups.” She sells them from the pastry case of her La Brea Bakery. “They’re as easy to make as a muffin,” she says. Don’t chop the chocolate too fine; the chunks should create molten pockets of chocolate throughout the cork.

1 cup plus 1/2 teaspoon sugar

1 (1/4-ounce) package dry yeast

1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons lukewarm water

1 1/2 cups unbleached pastry flour or unbleached all-purpose flour

1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons cocoa powder plus extra for dusting

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, melted and cooled, plus extra for greasing pan

5 eggs

1 to 1 1/3 cups coarsely chopped bittersweet chocolate, 6 to 8 ounces, depending on taste

* Sprinkle 1/2 teaspoon sugar over yeast in small mixing bowl. Pour lukewarm water over sugar and yeast and let sit until softened, about 5 minutes. Stir in 3/4 cup flour and cover tightly with plastic wrap. Set aside in warm place until bubbly, about 30 minutes.

* Sift together cocoa powder and remaining 1 cup sugar and remaining 3/4 cup flour. Make large well in center of dry ingredients and pour in butter, eggs and yeast mixture. Whisk together liquids and gradually draw in dry ingredients, whisking until completely incorporated. Stir in chocolate.

* Pipe or spoon batter into standard or mini muffin tins lightly coated with melted butter, filling to top. Bake at 375 on middle rack until firm to touch, 18 to 20 minutes for standard muffins and 7 to 8 minutes for mini muffins. Sift fine layer of cocoa powder over surface of corks while still warm. Serve warm or at room temperature.

1 dozen large or 4 dozen small corks. Each small cork: 87 calories; 46 mg sodium; 33 mg cholesterol; 6 grams fat; 8 grams carbohydrates; 2 grams protein; 0.13 gram fiber.

KIRK MCKOY / Los Angeles Times