The tiny space occupied by Little Cuckoo Chocolates + Cafe of the Chase Park Warehouse is clean and sweet (
literally sweet). Based on my definition, chocolate is, in fact, a superfood. It has these magical abilities to instantly transform my bad day into a good one. And this all makes sense scientifically, too, considering that the happiness-inducing hormone serotonin gets released with every bite.
Meet Amanda Crouse - someone who's probably even more passionate about chocolate than I am. Another Community intern Megan and I sat down with Amanda to talk about all things chocolate, hear her story, and we may
or may not have received free samples that were absolutely heavenly. In Amanda's own words: "Everyone loves chocolate; it's either that or drugs."
Q: When did you first become interested in making chocolate?
A: My mom’s family has a long history of baking and cooking. In between undergrad and grad school as an art student I worked at a chocolate shop downtown, which was where Yoguri is now. There was an older couple that started that shop a good 100 years ago and they sold it to a younger couple that didn’t really know a lot about chocolate making. They hired me and I didn’t really know about it either, but they had all of these recipes and all of these books and just kind of let me experiment. They let me sit back there and waste a bunch of ingredients until I got it right. And then I went to graduate school and stopped doing chocolate all together for a long time. After grad school I was waitressing and scrambling for money and started making little vegan chocolates out of my kitchen and selling them at Clocked. After that, I started the restaurant White Tiger Gourmet with my boyfriend at the time.
Q: Three generations of chocolate?
A: My mom, me, and my daughter Glennlee. (Side note: Glenlee stems from Amanda's two grandfathers' names: Glen and Lee). My mom helps me cook and watches my daughter. My daughter helps me cook and taste the things. It's hard telling her no all the time with the chocolate.
Q: What makes a chocolate vegan?
A: Vegan chocolate just doesn’t have any added dairy: cocoa butter instead of dairy. All of the dark chocolate I make is vegan.
Q: Do you know any interesting facts about chocolate?
A: I think it's interesting that even people like my boyfriend who don’t eat sweets and who don’t like chocolate, anybody (if they taste the right thing) will get addicted to it.
Q: What’s your favorite thing about chocolate?
A: Everybody loves it, and they eat it, and they feel happy. And that’s good.
Q: What is your favorite chocolate?
A: Vegan truffle, which doesn’t mean that it tastes bad, but I’ve been making truffles with unsweetened coconut milk. They don’t really taste like coconut, but they’re really creamy. I’ve been making ganache, which is the center of the truffle, and keeping it in tubs in my house in the fridge. Whenever I eat ice cream I mix it in.
Q: Would you call yourself a chocolatier?
A: I’m not really sure. People do call me that, but technically I’m not because I’m not trained. I’m self-taught with everything.
Q: What is usually the most surprising chocolate?
A: Basil truffles, white truffles with white truffle oil -- it's really musky. My new favorite is peanut butter bacon vodka. It's made with peanut butter, heavy cream, chocolate, and bacon-infused vodka. I’ve also dipped pork skins in chocolate; it's strangely like a Cheeto.
Q: What’s your favorite thing your mom has made for you?
A: She makes this pecan toffee that is kind of like a Skor bar. My mom is an amazing baker.
Q: Where do you get your ingredients?
A: A lot of the recipes I use are old-fashioned recipes from the '50s and use sweetened condensed milk and flavored oils that are kind of old-fashioned. I try and stick with that for the most part. Some of the recipes like raspberry lemon creams I use fresh raspberries and then make it into a preserve and cook that with my lemon juice and make the cream. I try and get everything that I can locally from the farmers market or friends. My lavender is mostly from my friend’s garden and the basil I get from a little garden up here near the store. I use a lot of Swiss, Belgian, and Venezuelan chocolates as well.
Q: Do you have any other hobbies?
A: I do, I do. I make life-size figurative sculptures out of clay, coil built and hollow. And I have been experimenting with pinhole photography by putting the cameras in their heads.
Q: Where do you like to shop for clothes?
A: I like to shop vintage. I always would go to Community or Minx, Dynamite, or Agora. I like to go to Habitat and sort through stuff, but now I like when someone else goes and digs through there. Out of necessity I’ll go down to Target.
Q: Where is your outfit from?
A: I got this skirt, I think at Minx or Agora, but I love this skirt. I think it probably had a jacket with it. And these are Old Gringo boots that I got online, my other ones need to be cleaned. I wear the other ones every day, they have a skull on them. I pretty much wear boots all the time.
Q: Are you planning on having the store opened through the fall?
A: I think so. Right now I am focusing on all of the wholesale orders. The space is going to be more of a community space. There is a girl coming in to sell some of her food. If someone doesn’t have a place to sell their product, they can come and sell it here.
Q: What are your favorite things to pair with chocolate?
A: Espresso and red wine.
Q: What is a customer favorite?
A: Salted caramels and basil lemonade, a drink that we serve here. (Side note: The basil lemonade is ridiculously good.)
Q: Is there anything that you want to experiment with?
A: I have been thinking about that baking gluten-free lately. It seems like a lot of people have that allergy (against gluten). I would like to do something with the ice cream, because that is really good.
Q: What is your biggest day?
A: Valentine's Day. Easter is not big at all. I think Halloween and Easter people usually just get the big bags of stuff.
Q: What is one thing you would want to tell people about your chocolates?
A: It's as fresh as you can get. It's real chocolate and if you get it here or downtown, it's been made in the last two weeks.
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For more information on Little Cuckoo, check out the website. You can read up on the available products and learn more about Amanda. The shop is located at 160 Tracy Street, Unit 1, Suite 1. Her chocolates, as always, can also be purchased at Community!
Love and chocolate,
Anna, Community Intern
