Bonbon voyage: Peruvian cook offers tour of chocolate tastes

By: GARY WARTH - Staff Writer | Wednesday, February 11, 2004 9:45 PM PST ∞

Mariella Balbi's kitchen cabinet has a few surprises in it. A jar of dark brown sea salt. A bottle of Inca Pisco brandy from Peru. Peppercorns, spiced candied citrus peels and imported Peruvian fruit.

More unusual, however, are not the ingredients themselves but what she does with them.

Balbi makes chocolate bonbons.

"All of my chocolates are different," she said. "I don't want to have marzipan or mocha. You can find those anywhere."

Since going into business as Guanni Chocolates last July, Balbi has been bringing a new taste in chocolate to the county. Tea, anise, brandy-soaked currants and hot peppers are just some of the surprising flavors she is introducing.

The Rancho Penasquitos resident is a one-woman operation, doing everything from buying her ingredients to selling her finished products at local farmers markets. Setting up shop Tuesday afternoons at the Escondido Farmers Market, Saturday mornings at the Vista Farmers Market and Sunday mornings at the Hillcrest Farmers Market, Balbi usually sells 700 candies a week.

Approaching Valentine's Day, Balbi is preparing for what she expects will be her busiest week, but she still has no intention of streamlining production with machines or additional help.

"Since yesterday, I was working like a crazy person," Balbi said Monday as she made bonbons in the kitchen of San Diego's DiMille's Restaurant, where the owner knows her from when she ran a catering business.

"This is the way my grandmother and my great-grandmother did things," she said as she dipped a hand-rolled ball of ganache into a bowl of dark, melted chocolate. "You have to do everything by hand."

Her recipes, however, are not handed down from generation to generation. Balbi uses ingredients and inspiration from her native Peru, but almost all of her recipes and their 13 unique names are her own.

The Loreto bonbon is named for a rain forest region in Peru and contains passion fruit and dried apricots. "Passion fruit to me is like the tropics," she said.

Criollo, which means a mixture of races, is Peruvian manjarblanco (cooked milk and sugar) mixed with bittersweet chocolate and covered with lightly roasted pecans.

The Capuli bonbon is named after a flower in the Peruvian highlands and contains dark chocolate, anise, spices and peppercorn. "It's a chocolate people love or don't," she said. "With the others, people like all of them. I think they don't like the feel of the peppercorn or they don't like the anise."

By selling at farmers markets, Balbi said she is able to let customers try her chocolates before buying them so nobody has buyer's remorse.

The Cassis bonbon ---- organic raspberries and cream of cassis in bittersweet chocolate ---- is one that everybody likes, Balbi said.

The Cocoroco bonbon may pack the biggest surprise. The combination of lemony caramel and bittersweet chocolate is topped with a sprinkle of Alaea sea salt.

Balbi thinks her most unusual chocolate, however, is the Cuzco, made with Peruvian yellow hot peppers and a mixture of orange and grapefruit peels, ginger, cinnamon and spices.

"And then I mix everything in milk chocolate," she said. "It's my latest creation. It's very special."

Balbi came to the United States from Peru four years ago with her husband to live near his family.

"When I came, I tried different kinds of things and decided to start a catering business," she said. "My husband said, 'Instead of wasting time with your food, why not try something with your chocolate? You're going to have more profit doing something you like.' "

She named her company Guanni as a combination of the names of her three sons, Gianni, Guanalvaro and Ian.

When she's not making chocolates, Balbi is shopping for ingredients, which include lucuma, a Peruvian fruit that is distributed from Miami.

Making the ganache ---- the flavored filling ---- takes about four hours. Rolling and dipping the ganache takes another eight hours and involves melting chocolate at 115 degrees, cooling it to 83 degrees and then slowly bringing it back up to between 87 and 89 degrees for dipping.

Once dipped and cooled, every bonbon is hand-decorated. They sell for $1.50 each at the farmers markets, at the store Three Cups in San Diego or at www.guannichocolates.com.

"When somebody comes for the first time, I really enjoy to give a small tour of all the flavors and let them experiment and discover what flavor is what," she said. "They go like, 'Ahhh,' 'Oh my gosh, what's that?' It's priceless. I really enjoy that part of the day."

Guanni Chocolates can be found at these locations.

Escondido Farmers Market, 2 - 6 p.m. Tuesdays

Vista Farmers Market, 7:45 - 11 a.m. Saturdays

Hillcrest Farmers Market, 9 a.m. - 1 p.m. Sundays

Three Cups, 2365 30th St., San Diego

www.GuanniChocolates.com

(858) 337-6805 or guannichocolates@san.rr.com

Contact staff writer Gary Warth at gwarth@nctimes.com or (760) 740-5410.