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Be tempted with savory pairings like chocolate and butternut squash, chocolate teriyaki and white chocolate honey mustard.
We’re all used to chocolate paired with strawberries, mint, coconut and every nut out there -- and we love them. But what about cocoa rubs on our steaks or chocolate barbeque sauces? Are we ready for the savory side of chocolate?
Combining chocolate and savory counterparts is nothing new for Bernadette Cicione, the executive chocolatier of Ocean State Chocolates & Confections located in historic Wickford Village in North Kingstown, Rhode Island. “People want something different,” she explains. “They’re sick of everything saying ‘gourmet’ or packaged in a fancy bottle. What they’re looking for is something new.” In business for six years, Cicione has been selling savory chocolates, truffles and sauces for three years now. And just as interesting as her collections of unique combinations is the quality of ingredients. So forget just about everything you know about chocolates – and try to erase the taste of the last chocolate bar you bought while waiting in line at the supermarket.
Because she starts with such a high quality of chocolate, all of the other ingredients Cicione uses are of the same caliber. Local, Rhode Island-grown produce, meats, beer, wine, honey and even flowers are used to create unique pairings. “A lot of creativity is needed to go out and source ingredients. It’s harder work, but makes a much better product,” she said. Buying fresh from the farm is much more cost-effective she explained, especially now with surcharges put on delivery costs due to gas prices. “The price of corn syrup has quadrupled, so we’ve reworked some recipes and found that we can use something else.” She added that when you buy local, you become part of a huge network, with farmers helping her find something if they don’t have it. “You can get everything you want from a local purveyor. You have to be diligent with your contacts once you make them, but it’s cheaper, better quality and your end product is far more superior,” she added. “I think this is what separates us from other chocolatiers.”
 The key to doing savory chocolate, Cicione stressed, is that it can’t be that far out of the ballpark. “If they can get their head around it, they’ll try it. It’s a fine line combining savory ingredients and chocolate that we have to walk. The chocolate adds a depth to food that makes you wonder what it is and it can be quite mysterious.”
For instance, her dark ruby port barbeque sauce blends dark chocolate, port wine from Newport Vineyards and espresso from a coffee roaster in Providence. “A lot of companies already use coffee in barbeque sauce, but because ours is fresh roasted, it’s so much better.” Adding cocoa powder to the sauce would make it bitter, so she makes hers with real chocolate.
Cicione calls her chocolate teriyaki sauce “mystical,” and it’s such a big seller that she can’t seem to keep it on her store’s shelves. “It has so many different flavor profiles, you’re just hit with one after the other,” she described. The base of this sauce is apple cider from Hill Orchards in Smithfield, Rhode Island, with local honey added, and then the demi-glaze of bacon from a farm also in the state. The bacon is caramelized with sugar, honey and wine. Garlic, onion and black cocoa powder (what’s used to make Oreos) are also added. “First you’re hit with the fruitiness, then the bacon and then the Oriental flavors. This is not the usual salty soy sauce-based teriyaki.”
Other sauces include the Belgium white chocolate honey mustard made with an IPA from a Rhode Island brewery and a chocolate fig port relish. When she’s working on a new recipe, Cicione gets all the free advice she can ask for at the local farmer’s markets she attends. “The customers will try it out and offer their opinions. We’re constantly interacting with our customers, and they make the product better for us. All of our sauces have been through this ‘system.’”
 Cicione has seasonal collections of chocolates and truffles. Some of the best sellers in the fall include heirloom squash truffles, candied beet truffles and carrot cake truffles. “We make our own candy mashes and compounds from the vegetables and this lets us control the quality. We can tell our customers exactly where the ingredients come from,” she noted.
Other delightful combinations are apparent with her strawberry truffles, which are loaded with the fruit picked from a local farm last year, then mashed and combined with champagne. Her Newport mansion line chocolate truffles include strawberry cheesecake and “Ruby Rosecliff”—a Yucatan dark chocolate, cherry blossom and rose petal syrup, and finished with pomegranate.
“A lot of what we do is about educating our customers,” Cicione noted. She explains not only about the benefits of using the quality of chocolate she uses, but also about buying local products. When we tell them about it, then they understand what we’re doing. It’s satisfying to know that we can please people’s palates while moving them away from mass-produced chocolates.”
Cicione explained that she and her team do everything by hand, and this truly is becoming a lost art form. Machines never touch the chocolate, so it won’t become overworked. The chocolate is tempered by hand and no thermometers are used. Everything is hand dipped, hand inspected, hand packaged and labeled. “Between fresh ingredients and unique combinations of ingredients, it sets us apart,” she noted.
She’s also quick to point out that not everyone is eager to try different flavors or even chocolates that come at a higher price than they’re used to. “I find that there are two groups of chocolate lovers out there. The first think that all chocolate is the same, so why spend money on it. The others are open to trying new things. They’ll come over to our side and eat the good stuff,” she joked.
Making chocolates in small batches guarantee that what she sells is always fresh. Her batches consist of about 50 truffles. She prefers to do it this way, noting that everything tastes fresher. Storage is also a concern and chocolate can be quite delicate. “We make just enough to sell. These are more of a living thing than something put on the shelf in a market,” she added. There are times, especially with seasonal items, when there’s a gap while they wait for the new crops. “But people understand that when you use seasonal produce it may take time. And I think people are beginning to realize that chocolate in some stores may be old, especially during the holidays.” To make sure this doesn’t happen in her store, Cicione only begins to make Christmas items after Thanksgiving.
“People usually stand in place when they’re eating our chocolates and are shocked. They become our customer for life,” she adds. Cicione has recently started Bay State Chocolates, featuring farm ingredients or artisan food products from Massachusetts—including a Sam Adams truffle.
“People want to try new and exotic things,” she explained. “Like fine wine and fine food, you develop a palate for great chocolates. If you give them a safety net, they’ll be willing to try new flavors.”
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Food and Beverage 
