The art of chocolate

When the founder of Bettys styled himself ‘Frederick Belmont, Chocolate Specialist’, it was no idle boast. Before opening the first Bettys Café Tea Room in Harrogate in 1919, this resourceful young orphan trained extensively in the art of chocolate making in his native Switzerland, in Marseille and in Paris.

More than a century later, our craft chocolatiers maintain Frederick’s high standards by combining those traditional skills with imagination and artistry to create our very best range of Easter eggs, chocolates and treats.

We start with exceptional ingredients. Our chocolate originates from rare and prized Criollo cocoa beans, grown in Venezuela’s north-western Maracaibo region by farming communities who over generations have perfected the cocoa’s quality and complex flavour profile.

After being sun-dried, the beans are sold for a sustainable fair price to Felchlin, a family-owned Swiss company who have been crafting fine chocolate for more than 110 years. They roast the beans whole, then grind them and produce couverture, the ‘raw’ chocolate before it is shaped by chocolatiers. Next comes conching – a careful process of mixing and aerating liquid couverture to distribute the cocoa butter and refine the texture and flavour.

Once each thick slab of couverture arrives at our Craft Bakery’s dedicated Chocolate Room, our team of skilled chocolatiers starts by tempering, painstakingly melting and cooling it to produce the glossy finish and characteristic ‘snap’ of fine chocolate.

They fill the chocolate moulds by hand, carefully piping in fillings such as ganache and caramel. Truffles are individually rolled in icing sugar; steady hands pipe chocolate swirls or arrange individually crafted sugar flowers onto Easter eggs, while treats are gently brushed with shimmering lustre.

Finally, the chocolates and Easter eggs are packed into elegant boxes, or foiled and hand-tied with a Bettys ribbon, ready for their journey’s destination – bringing delight to all who unwrap them.