Most people enjoy a praline in two bites. Some savour it for a minute. Some eat it rather more quickly than that. I completely understand. Chocolate has a way of making patience difficult. But whenever I watch someone bite into one of our handmade pralines or truffles at JusTrufs, I sometimes find myself thinking about everything that happened before that moment. The idea. The flavour memory that started it. The ingredients. The first experimental batch. The filling that needed a little less sweetness. The shell that needed to be thinner. The version that was almost there. And then, eventually, the moment when I taste it and think: Yes. This is it. In over 25 years of working with chocolate, I've learned that creating a new praline is rarely about following a recipe. It is about knowing what you are looking forand knowing when something isn't quite right. So, How Many Steps Go Into One Handmade Praline? The honest answer is: way more than you might imagine. Depending on the recipe, a handmade praline or truffle can involve dozens of individual processes, from selecting and preparing ingredients to making the filling, tempering chocolate, moulding shells, filling, capping, decorating, demoulding, inspecting and packing. Some steps happen once for an entire batch. Others are repeated piece by piece. And the process doesn't begin when the chocolate is melted. It begins with an idea. Where Does a New Chocolate Begin? This is perhaps the question I get asked most often: Where do you get your ideas? The funny thing is, there isn't one answer. Sometimes inspiration comes from an ingredient. Sometimes from a memory. Sometimes I taste something and think, that flavour would be wonderful with chocolate. And sometimes it starts with a chocolate I've tasted somewhere else. Not because I want to copy it, but because it makes me curious. Why does this work? Is it the cocoa? The roast? The nut? The sugar? The texture? The contrast between the shell and the centre? That curiosity is often the beginning of a new chocolate. Ideas can also come from the ingredients themselves: a beautiful spice, a particularly good nut, a seasonal fruit or a coffee with an unusual aroma. The idea may sit in my head for daysor weeks; sometimes yearsbefore I decide it is worth taking to the drawing board. Not every good idea needs to become a chocolate. Choosing Exceptional Ingredients Great chocolate begins long before the kitchen.The cocoa matters, of course. Origin, cocoa characteristics, roast and chocolate formulation all influence the final flavour. But once you start creating filled chocolates, the list becomes much longer. Nuts bring flavour, roast and texture. Cream and butter affect the richness and mouthfeel of a ganache. Fruit brings acidity and freshness. Spices add warmth and complexity. Coffee, caramel, vanilla, citrus and even salt can change the way chocolate tastes. Then there is stability and shelf life. We use no preservatives, so a filling has to taste wonderful while also being formulated carefully enough to hold up over time. After 25 years, I've learned that an ingredient can be wonderful on its own and still be completely wrong for a particular chocolate. The question isn't simply: Is this ingredient good? It is:Does this ingredient make the chocolate sing? From Idea to Recipe Once the ingredients are chosen, the real experimentation begins.A centre might be a silky ganache, nut praline, caramel, gianduja, fruit pte or a combination of flavours. The challenge is getting every element to work with the others. A few years ago, I created a praline called Hazelnut Praline. A very simple name for a very complex praline. I knew hazelnuts and milk chocolate were a match made in heaven. But I didn't want to use a store-bought hazelnut spread. So I bought a grinder and made my own version of hazelnut gianduja. We sourced the best hazelnutsold nuts can develop an oily, rancid tasteand began working on the recipe. There were umpteen trials. Eventually, we found the right texture and the right milk chocolate ratios. We found the right mould and the right chocolate for the shell. The praline tasted great. But it lacked something. So we added a crunchone that would hold its texture rather than becoming soggy against the creamy centre. That worked. And that is what recipe development is really like. The first version tells you what an idea could become. The next corrects the obvious problems. Another may reveal something completely different. Perhaps the filling is too sweet. The shell is too thick. The flavour disappears too quickly. The texture is wrong. And sometimes everything is technically right and I still don't love it. That last one is particularly frustrating. But experience teaches you not to fall in love with an idea simply because it was your idea. If something doesn't work, it goes back to the drawing board. I taste. I compare. I adjust. I make it again. And then I taste it again.The Chocolate Matters Too Chocolate itself is an extraordinarily complex ingredient. Depending on the product and process, stages such as refining and conching influence its final texture and flavour. Then comes tempering: controlling the crystallisation of cocoa butter to achieve the shine, clean snap and pleasing melt we expect from good chocolate. All of this sounds technical. It is. But when you work with chocolate every day, you also learn to read it. You watch it. You feel it. You see how it behaves. And when everything comes together well, you just know. Building the Shell Once the filling is right, the chocolate has to contain it beautifully. That means preparing the moulds, tempering the chocolate, casting the shells, allowing them to set, filling them and finally capping them. Timing matters enormously. A shell that is too thin may not have enough structure. One that is too thick can overwhelm the filling. A filling introduced at the wrong temperature can affect the shell. A poorly sealed cap can compromise the finished chocolate. From the outside, the process may look simple. It isn't. After years of making chocolates, you begin to recognise the small signals that tell you when something is readyand when it needs another few minutes. The Finishing Touches Then comes the part everyone notices first: the appearance. Demoulding. Decorating. Polishing. Painting. Dusting. Inspecting. It is tempting to think that decoration is simply about making a chocolate look beautiful. For me, it is more than that. The finish should belong to the flavour. And every piece needs to be inspected. Is the shell intact? Is the filling properly centred? Is the surface clean? Is the shine right? Is the decoration consistent? When you're producing handmade chocolates, consistency doesn't come from making every decision identical. It comes from developing the skill to make the right decision repeatedly. Even the Packing Matters The work isn't finished when the chocolate leaves the kitchen. Chocolate is sensitive to temperature, humidity, light, odours and handling. This becomes even more important with filled chocolates because the centre introduces another layer of complexity. The balance between flavour, texture and shelf life has to be considered when a filling is formulated.So yes, even the way a chocolate is packed matters. Because the chocolate I've spent days developing still has to reach you in the condition in which I intended you to experience it. The Chocolate You Don't See: Tasting If there is one part of creating chocolate that people probably don't imagine, it is the tasting. There isn't one magical taste test where I declare a chocolate finished.I taste throughout the process: the filling, the chocolate, the combination and the finished piece. Sometimes I wait, because chocolate changes as it settles and some flavours become more harmonious with time. At JusTrufs, a chocolate doesn't get the JTC stamp of approval simply because the recipe works. It has to earn its place. It has to be balanced. It has to taste right. What You Don't Notice When You Eat a Praline The shine on the surface may tell you that the chocolate has been tempered correctly. The snap gives you a clue about its crystalline structure. The smoothness of the melt reflects the chocolate's formulation and processing.The aroma changes as the chocolate warms in your mouth. The filling has to sit in exactly the right relationship with the shell. You may never consciously notice any of this. And that's perfectly fine. In fact, perhaps that is the point. When the craft is done well, you don't think about the technique. You simply think: That's delicious. And that final impression is the best part of the process for me. Twenty-Five Years Later, I'm Still Curious Perhaps the most surprising thing about spending 25 years working with chocolate is that I still don't feel I've finished learning.There are always new ingredients, new cocoa origins, new combinations, new techniquesand occasionally, an old flavour that makes me think about it differently. That's what keeps chocolate interesting. A praline might look small. It might take only a few bites. But inside those few bites is a remarkable amount of thought, experimentation and accumulated understanding. And to me, that is the magic of chocolate: making something extraordinarily considered feel completely effortless. Try Some of Our Favourites! 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