Chris Thompson and Amy Sargeantson have spread their wings from Noosa Chocolate Factory and opened up a new Brisbane chocolate shop in the CBD.
Self-named Amy Sargeantson Chocolate Maker, located just off Adelaide Street and adjacent to H&M, has self-service chocolate (danger Will Robinson) and a growing menu. Amy is a pastry chef.
The pair who are partners in life as well as business, decided to get back into cake making and just exploring the joy of creating a new range of chocolate.
“We want to get into the more European side,” says Chris, “with truffles and we’ve got some exciting machinery coming which will allow us to explore the avenues.”
“It’s called an enrober. Instead of chocolate coating using panning machines, it chocolate coats nuts and fruit with a thin layer like a Mars Bar.”
“We make pretty good nougats, so we are going to do them choc dipped. Once we get our enrober set up, we’ll be chocolate coating on lots of things such as our own fudges.”
Exciting chocolate at Amy Sargeantson
Chris says he is most excited about the chocolate panning range.
“It doesn’t look exciting, but once it’s in your mouth, it’s pretty exciting. We’re doing cocoa dusting a lot now as I am steering away from polishing the chocolate coating. The polished chocolate looks good, and it preserves the life of the chocolate for 12 months. With cocoa dusting, you’ve got to have them sold and eaten within six weeks really.
“What’s great about cocoa dusting is as soon as it hits your mouth, you get a really intense cocoa flavour, and it melts. Unfortunately, when you polish, you get a couple of seconds of nothing when you put the chocolate in your mouth unless you bite into it straight away.
“We just make small batches of chocolate coated products. It is a lot earthier too, a lot more natural and it looks healthier.
“We don’t make our chocolate completely. We use a Belgium chocolate, but we add about 10 or 15 per cent of PMG chocolate. The reason why we can’t go all PMG is because it is quite expensive, but also the chocolate is too thick.
“Belgium chocolate is nice and thin for when you want to get into crevices, like almonds or cherries. You can see the shape of the almond, the shape of the cherries because the chocolate is thinner, so it picks up the little crevices. They’ve got little dents and bubbles.”
What next for Amy Sargeantson chocolate?
Chocolate coated, fruit flavoured jellies are next on Chris’ list.
“It sets hard, but the jelly will be a bit gooey. It doesn’t stretch like traditional jellies. They will be all-natural flavours that really burst out that flavour. We will be chocolate coating a lot of those.
Remember chocolate moulding the in the 1990s? Well, Chris is determined to revive that trend.
“I kind of want to bring it back a little bit more. All I’ve been doing for my whole life is slabs and panning, and I’d just like to do something a bit different.”
As their product lines develop, Amy Sargeantson will also offer a rocky road which will definitely be something to look out for. At the moment the must try is Amy’s Brownies which have that thick, gooey texture that reeks of chocolate, and lots of it. There are several different varieties – original, dark coated, milk coated and white coated! I dare you to try them all!
Getting there
Find the Amy Sargeantson chocolate shop at 133 Adelaide Street, Brisbane. The chocolate products are made in a new factory at Albion. There are plans to open the factory for retail and tours.
I found it when wandering through H&M to Adelaide Street. Stop for a coffee, a hot chocolate and do try the brownies!
Are you a cheese lover? Don’t miss The Cheese Pleaser which is located on the other side of Adelaide Street.
For more chocolate indulgence try the new ruby chocolate.
Try the cocoa dusted chocolate bullets. They are amazing!
Thanks for the reco. Will be tasting some of those brown beauties soon.