UKAW chocolate workshop
Claudia was an excellent teacher and I loved my bonbon workshop!
This is definitely the best activity in the city of Pucallpa!
I loved my bonbon workshop with UKAW!
UKAW is Ucayali Kakaw, a phonetic spelling of the Spanish word cacao, which means cocoa, the main ingredient in chocolate. Created by Pucallpina Gianina Flores, a young woman from Pucallpa with a passion for chocolate, this is the primo chocolate brand in Ucayali. Her grandmother passed on her family’s chocolate making traditions, which inspired her to share cacao grown along the Ucayali River with the rest of the world. Her chocolates have won national and international awards, which after tasting UKAW I completely understand. These are some extraordinary chocolates.
Behind the window is where the magic happens: chocolate is made and workshops teach how to make chocolate.
UKAW isn’t just excellent chocolate, it’s also a woman-owned, small company that supports organic farming and families who have grown cacao for generations. They use three local varieties of cacao of the over 25 varieties that are native to Peru. These are grouped into three families of cacao trees, of which the Chuncho varieties are most common in the south, like the jungles of Cusco, the Criollo varieties are most common in the north, like San Martín, and the Trinitario varieties are most common in the middle of the country, like along the Ucayali River.
The UKAW ganache chocolates workshop is amazing!
I went for the workshop and was thrilled with the process and the result. I made sixteen hand-painted, ganache-filled chocolates with 65% cacao chocolate. Here’s the steps that my instructor Claudia led me through:
1. Paint the molds with cocoa butter
Claudia gave me four colors to work with: red, yellow, green and white. Any blank spaces on the molds would be where the 65% dark chocolate would show through. The butter was warm so after each color I had to wait for it to cool. Then we had to put the molds in the fridge for a minute before the second step.
2. Line the molds with chocolate
Claudia did this step for me so I could take photos. She covered the mold with melted chocolate, then turned it upside down and shook it until the chocolate filling the molds dripped off and just a thin layer of chocolate stuck to the cold cocoa butter. We had to put it back in the fridge for a minute while I choose the ganache.
3. Fill the molds with ganache
My choices were camu camu, aguaymanto and maracuyá. Camu camu is a jungle fruit that makes a bright pink juice and is fairly sour so it always takes a lot of sugar to make good juice, ice cream or ganache. I love camu camu but it just tasted too sweet. Aguaymanto is one of my favorite fruits. It’s a cousin of the tomato and grows like tomatillo, with a papery covering, but it golden-orange and very sweet. Maracuyá is a kind of passion fruit. I couldn’t decide between the last two so I did one row aguaymanto and the other maracuyá.
4. Cover with chocolate
The last step is to carefully cover the molds with chocolate to cover the ganache and so it stays in place.
5. Take home and eat
Claudia gave me two boxes to package my chocolates, one for 4 and one for 12. I wanted to share some with my friend July who makes Yunka chocolate in Cusco and am still unsure if I’ll give her 4 or 12.
Note: In Spanish, the ganache-filled chocolates are called bombones. I know technically they’re bonbons in English, but I never call chocolates bonbons.
The best chocolate tasting EVER
UKAW makes about 50,000 chocolate bars every month and when you go to their shops in Pucallpa or in Lima you can do a chocolate tasting. There are eleven different chocolate bars you can taste: 100% cacao, 95% with stevia, 85% with panela, 70% with panela, 70% with dried pineapple and coconut, 60% with nibs and salt, 60% with coffee, 45% with aguaje and cashew, 45% with mango and passion fruit, 45% with orange and cashew and 35% white chocolate with camu camu. The last four, with 45% or 35% cacao, are milk chocolates. Panela is a less processed version of sugar.
I bought three bars: 100%, 80% and 70%.
UKAW also makes chocolate covered castaña (Brazil nut), coffee beans and dried blueberries. In Spanish they’re called grageas, which translates to something like pills or balls but they’re just chocolate coated nuts, coffee or berries.
UKAW has so many different bonbons!
If you don’t have time to make your own, you can choose from over a dozen different ganache-filled chocolate bonbons.
UKAW is the best you’ll find in Pucalpa and Lima, but as long as I’m recommending chocolate: when you’re in Cusco, try Yunka chocolates. Yunka cacao is grown in the Manu biosphere reserve and is my favorite chocolate in Cusco.
Going to Lima?
UKAW had chocolate bar and chocolate bonbon workshops in both Pucallpa and Lima. Check the UKAW website for details!
