[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1624360478592{margin-bottom: 0px !important;}”]Stephanie van Vuuren is the owner of JackRabbit Chocolate Studio in Pretoria, and here’s a little bit more about this exciting chocolatier.

HM: How did you get into creating chocolates? Please describe your journey for us

I found myself bored when buying chocolate. There was nothing new and exciting that I literally couldn’t wait to rip the packet open for. I have always loved chocolate, but I had a revelatory experience whilst chocolate tasting in France.

What I loved about the experience was the initial crack of the perfectly tempered chocolate shell, the sensation of the taste and texture of the filled content spreading across your palate with a soft mouth feel and a clean finish that doesn’t leave a residual fatty taste and layer in your mouth.

On my return, I immediately began experimenting with flavours, textures and chocolate combinations. I held chocolate tasting sessions with friends to gain a better understanding of what people actually want from their chocolate, and also whether the fine chocolate experience was something that appealed to them.

I take such pleasure in the conceptualisation of the products and there are so many international chocolatiers experimenting with all the dimensions of chocolate, some of whom we regularly stalk on social media (and physically when in the same country), that it’s exciting to be part of the creative forum working in the chocolate medium.

My family members are largely technically-orientated and highly independent, but I always dreamed of being involved in the arts or pursuing culinary endeavours. However my parents felt strongly about building a technical career instead and so I studied and started out in the field as a programmer. But programming for a living simply didn’t suit me.  So I left programming behind me to a large extent and went back to help run the family engineering business.

In case you couldn’t tell, I enjoy a challenge and seldom go about doing things the easy way. So while I enjoyed baking for my friends, what I enjoy most is mastering the intricacies of technically challenging food, I really started out experimented with pastry and, after researching whic pastry is reckoned to be the most difficult to master, I struck upon macarons. I received praise for my macarons from people whose critical opinions on food I trust, and decided to venture into the commercial sphere for the first time with my creations. A friend and I made over 6000 macaroons for sale at the 2012 Good Food and Wine Festival in Johannesburg, which was the start of everything else that has come. My experience with those macarons taught me that commercial gastronomy can be both tremendously rewarding and technically taxing, and that there is much more to learn and conquer beyond food – eating experience, marketing, business and finance and more. And I wanted it. Through further experimentation, dreaming and several ventures along the road, I quickly arrived back at – what was ultimately always really close to my heart and taste-buds – chocolate! I drastically scaled up my experimentation, my equipment and social media platform engagement. When I visited Europe with my now husband, he was frankly stunned- mostly by how much of our holiday budget I spent on chocolate moulds, books, other equipment and the hard-work-carrying it all was back home.

HM: What are some of the distinctive features of JackRabbit Chocolates?

I feel that JackRabbit is more than just chocolate.  Chocolate has a habit of becoming cutesy, and I’m trying to move away from that image by combining chocolate and art. I love impressionist water colours and oil paintings. I try to make my chocolates look as if they could be riotous snippets from an oil painting. I’m influenced by many different painters, but I enjoy creating “splash-effects” and colour contrasts, and I feel the greatest affinity with the likes of van Gogh and Jackson Pollock. More recently, I’m trying out more water colour effects.

[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]How do you decide which flavours to use in your filled chocolates?

I love making chocolates that have these crazy combinations but I have also created tiny “dessert experiences” where the chocolate is basically a tiny dessert. Lately I’ve made kalamansi meringue pie as well as blueberry crumble peanut butter and jelly, and chocolate chip cookies with a milk ganache.  I usually carry a notebook with me, and wherever I eat, I take notes on the flavours I like and didn’t like. From there, I try and formulate how I could combine all the flavours I love and see where that takes me.

 HM: How did you come up with the Frank the Snowman concept?

I wanted to sell an amazing hot chocolate mix. One that would bring as much joy to the people drinking it, as it was to create. I saw some international chocolatiers use the chocolate as a vessel rather than just an ingredient and then we decided to start playing around with shapes. We ended up with the snowman and my daughter named him Frank. After some crying because we murdered him (because he melted), we all sipped happily on our hot chocolate.

Where would you like to see JackRabbit Chocolates?

I do have the capacity to produce large quantities of chocolate and would like to provide exclusive turn down service chocolates to high-end hotels and boutique Guest Houses.  I would also like to supply high end restaurants with chocolates to form part of desserts and or coffee serving.

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