How Godiva is made?

How are these pralines and chocolates made, which manage to produce so many taste surprises inside a shell which is both creamy and crisp? By using fresh, natural ingredients and by respecting the Godiva tradition.

The Godiva Ingredients

The enrobing chocolate, dark, milk or white is specially prepared for Godiva following their own recipe. Everything is decided by Godiva: the choice of cocoa beans, the degree of roasting, the fineness of grinding, the purity and the homogeneity of the chocolate paste, which is refined by conching. And despite the relaxation of rules in the new European directive, Godiva uses only chocolate made from 100 percent cocoa butter. Without vegetable fats. Real chocolate!

The fillings - fine creams, delicate marzipan, fruit and nuts - are prepared in the mixers in the Godiva kitchens. Only genuine, fresh products are brought into this workshop, which is the real heart of Godiva quality. Fresh butter and real cream are delivered several times a week. And the hint of alcohol , notably in the fresh cream pralines, comes from top brand liqueurs and three star Cognac.

The praline is always made in-house. This is one of the Godiva strong points. Turkish hazelnuts, selected and calibrated to give an even roasting, are heated to develop their aroma and peeled to avoid any bitterness. Cooled, they are mixed with an equal quantity of sugar, then heated again and caramelised. Ground between two enormous granite millstones, they then pass between cylinders, which grind them even more finely to just 20 microns in size. The powder and the oil from the grinding are mixed to form the praline paste- smooth and sweet smelling.

The nougatine is also made in a traditional way at Godiva. Roasted, crushed nuts are mixed with a sugar caramel without adding water. This preparation is rolled out on a marble table and cooled. Broken into little squares using a caramel roller, it will be used to create, for example, a taste contrast between the crispness and the creaminess of certain fillings.

The Preparation of Pralines and Chocolates

Five production techniques are used to produce the variety of shapes and the subtle taste associations in Godiva chocolates. These are moulding, extrusion, enrobing by hand or under a curtain of liquid chocolate, dipping and hand piped decoration.

The moulded pralines are made after the chocolate has been tempered, which brings it up to a temperature to give it the most stable, crystal clear form, with a beautiful shine and clean breaking quality. The liquid chocolate is poured into moulds where the shape of the chocolates is imprinted. The moulds are laid out on vibrating tables where the tapping brings bubbles of air to the surface to ensure the homogeneity of the chocolate. The moulds are then turned over and the excess chocolate runs off. There is just one hollow shell into which the cream or filling is poured. After it cools, the base is protected by a layer of chocolate. But Godiva does not just produce flat bottomed pralines. Symmetrical moulds, filled separately and then assembled, allow the creation of double sided chocolates and the marriage of several flavours. The Coeurs de Bruxelles (Brussels Hearts) for example.

Extrusion consists of passing a quantity of paste through a plate with a predetermined hole in it which then produces a roll. After cooling, this is cut in pieces to pre-form what, after enrobing, becomes the centre of a chocolate. The Gianduja is prepared in this way, but is not coated afterwards. It consists of mainly praline (hazelnuts and caramelised sugar) to which is added a portion of chocolate and cocoa butter to obtain the consistency and the melting which give it its distinctive character. The paste is homogenised, extruded, cooled, cut and wrapped in aluminium paper to preserve freshness.

Enrobed chocolates are made by passing a ready cut, cooled interior under a curtain of liquid chocolate and then through a refrigerated tunnel. They are decorated ways: with a fine jet of chocolate, sprinkling, placing a nut on top or a film made with a mix of cocoa butter and food colourants. Palets, with a ganache base, are made in this way.

Pralines - hand made or hand decorated are another Godiva speciality. You cannot fail to admire the dexterity of the artistic worker who produces her sixty kilos of Manons every day with a two pronged fork. She plunges a little dome of fresh cream, garnished with a kernel of a Grenoble nut, into a bath of melted sugar heated to 60 degrees. And with a simple flick of the wrist she creates the characteristic drapé. The fine chocolate calligraphy which decorates other specialities is done with little paper piping bags. That's certainly the case with the leaf which decorates the Autant chocolate.(For the history books, this leaf is a stylised version of the feather which Scarlett O'Hara wore in her hat. Autant was originally called "Autant en emporte le vent' (Gone With The Wind), created for the release of the film in Brussels in 1949).