Chocolate delights

IT was the love of good quality chocolate that pushed Lee See Pin and Michael Woo to establish Cocoraw – where tasty chocolate truffles are made.
Lee pointed that it started with her interest in baking.
"I like to bake a lot – and what my friends told me, chocolate truffles was the best thing that came out of my kitchen. We also realised there are not many soft truffle chocolates in the local market here," she said.
Both Lee and Woo noticed that there is a gap between commercial off-the-shelf chocolates and high-end chocolates like Royce and Patchi in the market, but nothing in between.
"We want to make good tasting chocolate accessible to people by trying to bridge the gap between off-the-shelf and premium chocolates," Lee said.
Both Lee and Woo took the leap of faith by setting up the company in early 2016, and began holding small-scale tasting sessions of their chocolate truffles in flea markets.
"The turnout was small, but from those who tasted the chocolates, we got feedback and we moved forward from there," Lee said.
Cocoraw offers two basic types of homemade chocolate truffles – The Milk which is creamy and made from couverture with 33% cocoa mass, and Raw 70, which is dark chocolate that has 70% cocoa mass.
Lee said they gave the truffles a twist by infusing local flavours such as Salted Gula Melaka and Ipoh White Coffee, as well as their alcoholic variety labelled "AA".
She added that the chocolate truffles are made ala Nama chocolate, Japanese-style chocolate truffles – which has a soft overall texture compared to the traditional France chocolate truffle, where the ganache cream is fi lled into thin, hard chocolate shells.
"Nama in Japanese means 'fresh' or 'raw', and that is how the company's name was derived from," Lee said.
Woo said while Cocoraw is selling its product through its Facebook page and website, he said the company has branched out by infusing their chocolate into the menus of several cafes and dessert shops in Klang Valley.
"Our two-prong approach is to focus on our sales of chocolate truffles online, as well as to approach cafes and eateries to introduce our chocolates into their menu. A lot of cafes focus on their coffee, but not on other items, including chocolate related ones, and they might not taste great," he said.
Woo added that Milkcow outlets in the Gardens Mall, IOI City Mall and Pavilion KL have incorporated Cocoraw's chocolate truffles into their soft-serve ice cream menu, while Michelangelo's Restaurant & Bar and Bru Cafe have used chocolate ice cubes from Cocoraw in their chocolate beverages.
"The ice chocolate in the cafes (Michelangelo's Restaurant & Bar and Bru Cafe) was introduced in July, and is doing quite well," he said.
Cocoraw has also collaborated with Kingstreet Cafe to create The Kingsmen – a chocolate truffle mixed with the cafe's Arabica coffee blend which is exclusive to the cafe in Kuala Lumpur.
"We have other ideas for promoting our chocolate into cafe menus, like toast and chocolate syrup, chocolate pizza or even pairing tea and chocolate truffles," he said.
While there are interesting plans ahead, Woo expressed hope that Cocoraw would be able to educate Malaysians about the variety of chocolates available in the market.