The Art of Chocolate

By Angie Johnson-Schmit

For the past four years Tracy Taylor has been making sweet dreams come true for chocolate lovers in Prescott, Arizona. The chocolatier behind the handmade confections at Black Butterfly Artisan Chocolates has a well-earned reputation for excellence. From single source fair trade Venezuelan chocolate and unexpected flavor profiles to her meticulous presentation, Black Butterfly chocolates are luscious works of edible art.

Stepping into the shop is like walking into a chocolate wonderland.

Trays of beautifully arranged bon bons, mendiants (chocolate medallions) and chocolate bark line the shelves of the display case, while stacks of chocolate bars are arranged on the counter. Antique chocolate molds, gifted to Tracy by a customer, decorate the walls and displays of cacao pods and cacao beans remind patrons of the source of their favorite treats.

Taylor, the one-woman chocolatier behind Black Butterfly, goes to great lengths to make sure her chocolates are beautiful as well as delicious. The bon bons are hand painted, the mendiants are carefully studded with fruits and nuts, and all of the confections are packaged in exquisite gift boxes. As Taylor put it, “aesthetics is important to me…because we eat with our eyes first.”

While Taylor includes some of the most popular chocolate flavors in her repertoire, she is a master of bringing unexpected flavors to her confections. The results are undeniably delicious. “I used to do things that customers would request,” said Taylor. “And I found when I did that, they weren’t really selling.” Her approach now is to make “what you don’t know you want,” and her customers love it. With carefully crafted flavors like lemon cheesecake bon bons and black mission fig with pink peppercorn mendiants, there are tastes to please every palate.

She credits growing up in Vancouver with her love of global flavors and inspiring her to develop her palate. “I do a nod to India by doing a bark with garam masala in it…a lot of those global flavors come from foods that I grew to like as an adult,” said Taylor. Many of her core ingredients, like the Vietnamese cinnamon she uses, reflect this passion for bringing the best flavors from around the world to her candies.

Perhaps her ingenuity shines brightest in her seasonal and holiday collections. For Father’s Day this year, she created two specialty collections with her father and stepfather in mind. In honor of her father, who loved beer and popcorn, Taylor created a traditional ale bon bon and paired it with a popcorn infused bon bon. “The popcorn was ground to a powder and emulsified with ghee, which is clarified butter, and then piped into a dark chocolate shell,” said Taylor.

For her stepfather, she did a play on coffee and donuts. For the coffee bon bon, Tracy used a mold that looks like a Nespresso coffee pod and used Campgrounds tea and coffee with coffee liqueur. The donut bon bon was shaped like a ring donut and infused with a cake donut and white chocolate liqueur so it “tasted like an actual donut.”

For the Christmas and winter holidays, Taylor doesn’t just think about what flavors to make, but also finds ways to include gifts that have more lasting elements. Last year she created a charcuterie board gift set. “It was a five-piece bon bon collection that included our goat cheese lemon, our fig and port wine, pink peppercorn, Gorgonzola, and plum tomato,” she said. “And we packaged it on top of a beautiful, handcrafted cherry wood charcuterie paddle.”

Hot cocoa is a hugely popular seasonal favorite, and Taylor once again elevated the treat. For the past three years she has been making large hot chocolate ornaments hand-painted to look like an actual ornament. Filled with chopped chocolate, cocoa powder, and refined sugar, and packaged with a small bag of miniature marshmallows, they are an easy way to make hot cocoa. “Bring your pot of milk or cream to a simmer, pop your ornament in, stir, and voilá, you’ve got four six-ounce servings,” said Taylor.

Another big hit were the gifts with Mexican hot chocolate whisks, or molinillos. “You put it between your hands, and you rub and it turns these rings all around and froths your chocolate,” said Taylor. The molinillos were sold with dark chocolate and a recipe for Parisian-style drinking chocolate, with a larger version that was packaged with a handcrafted terracotta hot chocolate pot and a recipe for Vietnamese cinnamon hot chocolate.

Last year’s twist was individual serving hot chocolate bombs. Instead of filling the bombs with hot cocoa mix, the Black Butterfly cocoa bombs were made of 61% dark chocolate and filled with chopped chocolate and marshmallows. “When you pour your heavy cream or milk in the mug, it explodes and the marshmallows float to the top,” said Taylor. “If you use heavy cream, it then becomes more like a sipping chocolate, which is like drinking a thick ganache.”

Aesthetics is important to me… because we eat with our eyes first.

Valentine’s Day is, of course, a huge holiday for Taylor. This year was so successful for her that after the holiday “there wasn’t a stitch of chocolate anywhere in the store.” While it’s a good problem to have, it also meant that she had little time to catch her breath before heading back into the kitchen. It takes Taylor four days to make her chocolates, and she had to close the shop for a week to rebuild her stock.

Taylor’s path to becoming a chocolatier has had several twists and turns. Her first venture into chocolate making began mostly for fun. She made bark recipes “where you melt the chocolate, you throw it in the fridge and it sets up.” Taylor hadn’t yet learned how to temper her chocolate, but she knew enough to use good quality ingredients like Callebaut, a Belgian chocolate.

It wasn’t until she was working as a drive examiner for the State of Nevada that she turned her hand a little more seriously to making her chocolates.

It really all started as a hobby,” said Taylor. “I just did it as an added supplement to my income, selling it to friends and family and coworkers.

During her time in Las Vegas, she was introduced to Venezuelan chocolate. “Once I tasted it, there was no turning back,” said Taylor. “The flavor profiles were just incredible.” It was also around this time that she bought her first book by the Belgian master chocolatier, Jean-Pierre Wybauw. “That was my first chocolate book and that’s really where it all started,” said Taylor.

She got serious about making chocolates when she moved to Naples, Florida. Inspired by her visits to the farmers markets in the area, Taylor invested in a portable generator and cold packs and began selling her wares. Her customer base grew rapidly, and she soon found herself working as many as five different farmers markets a week.

After she got divorced, Taylor decided to move to Arizona. Her mother lives in Yuma, and Taylor first looked to settle and open a shop in the Phoenix area. She quickly decided that she was not interested in a return to big city life and turned her eyes farther north.

Taylor had been to Prescott during previous visits to the state and fell in love with the “Main Street, USA” feel of the town. After looking at options, she chose a store location in the Old Firehouse Plaza.

With the move, she decided it was time to choose a new name for her business. Inspired by the Deniece Williams song, “Black Butterfly,” Taylor started researching black butterflies. Butterflies are associated with transformation and metamorphosis, while black butterflies are quite rare. “I felt what I was bringing to Prescott was unique to the area, and because I was starting over completely coming off of the divorce, I figured it was the perfect name,” said Taylor. And she was right.