C o l o r a d o  C o c o a  P o d

Handcrafted Chocolates & Confections

Hello Colorado Cocoa Pod! What inspired you to start a handcrafted chocolates and confections company?

Hi! My name is Liane Pensack-Rinehart (Liane PR for short), I am an ex-software engineer turned chocolatier. In 2015, I decided to go back to school to get a degree in Baking & Pastry Arts at Johnson and Wales in Denver. My first course was Chocolates & Confections. It was in that class that I tasted real chocolate, not the fake, sugar-filled junk at the supermarket, and learned about cacao and fell in love with the whole process of painting and creating chocolate bonbons and other chocolate confections. At the end of my schooling, I quit as a software engineer and did an internship at a local chocolate shop (that is no longer around), and that is where I expanded my knowledge and skill with making molded bonbons. After working there for a few months, in 2019 I decided to start my own bonbon/chocolate business to create chocolates with Asian flavors that I (at the time) couldn’t really find anywhere else, as well as be able to have full control of my creations. This is how Colorado Cocoa Pod came to fruition. Since then, I have grown my little chocolate business that started in my kitchen, to my full time career and have my own chocolate lab in my house.

What kind of chocolate goodies do you offer?

I specialize in Asian inspired chocolate bonbons and other chocolate confections that aren’t too sweet, but full of balanced flavor. They are beautiful, delicious, but never too pretty to eat! My Signature Bonbon Collection is a 12pc Zodiac Animal Bonbon box based off the 12 Chinese Zodiac Animals that contains Asian flavors such as black sesame, matcha green tea, and lychee, along with more traditional bonbon flavors like sea salt caramel, cookies ‘n cream, and peanut butter banana.

Other chocolate confections I offer include: solid tablets, hot chocolate spoons, chocolate covered oreos, bonbons that rotate seasonally, chocolate covered malt balls, chocolate covered dried fruit, and limited holiday items like giant smashable candyfilled eggs.

Can you describe more what the hand making process looks like?

It takes me 4 days to make around 3000+ bonbons, which I do almost every week. I hand polish each polycarbonate mold, and on Day 1 it’s painting. I temper (melt the cocoa butter to a certain temperature before cooling it to a specific temperature) my colored cocoa butter and paint anywhere from 50 to 100+ polycarbonate molds with splatters, sponges, and brush stroke designs
before air brush spraying each cavity with more colored cocoa butter for each specific flavor (each flavor has a certain design/color). Day 2 is shelling all the molds. I used to have to temper chocolate by hand, but now I have an automatic tempering machine that heats my chocolate, cools it, then holds it at a specific temperature for a long period of time. This machine allows me to quickly shell 100+ molds in a day, along with taps out all the air bubbles, and lets me create a nice, even, thin chocolate shell. Day 3 is for fillings. I make anywhere from 6-24 different fillings a week. Some bonbons have multiple layers: caramel, marshmallow, praline, ganache, and pate de fruit. This is usually my longest day, since it takes a while to make each filling (and also do my dishes in between). Day 4 is capping - I make sure all my fillings have set up properly overnight,
and then I turn on my tempering machine. Once my chocolate is in temper and ready to go, I gently heat the edges of each bonbon cavity with a heat gun to make sure the chocolate has something to stick to, before putting a thin layer of chocolate to seal each bonbon. Once the chocolate sets, each tray goes into the refrigerator, and then it gets unmolded.

I usually unmold on Day 4, but sometimes Day 5 is unmolding and packing of everything. Sometimes my husband helps me put each bonbon into a candy cup, which then gets packed into my custom boxes. Each box gets labeled, sealed, and then sealed again in a larger bag before getting stored in the freezer.

You have some bright colors and designs with your bonbon collections! What sparks your creativity for your collections?

I try to make the bonbon design reflect the filling. You eat with your eyes, so I believe it helps bring out the flavors more when it’s painted like the fruit or flavor I am going for. For my Zodiac Bonbon Collection, each bonbon is painted to represent each animal of the Chinese Zodiac, but I also made the flavor similar to each animal. For example, my Rat is gray with pink and black speckles - since I picture rats to have little pink noses, black eyes, and gray fur, but also the filling is caramel black sesame, so the speckles represent the black sesame seeds.

"You eat with your eyes, so I believe it helps bring out the flavors more when it’s painted like the fruit or flavor I am going for. For my Zodiac Bonbon Collection, each bonbon is painted to represent each animal of the Chinese Zodiac, but I also made the flavor similar to each animal". 

I now try to keep my designs fairly simple, with a lot of splatter, speckles, swirls, or simple two-toned colors because it is easier to produce, takes less time, and has become ‘my style’.

What is your favorite flavor?

Always a difficult question to answer because I have so many! But pretty much all the fruity ones I love, especially passion fruit, yuzu, or lemon key lime. I really like the tart, citrusy flavors, because they pair so well with chocolate. But I do love my raspberry black sesame, especially when I make my Raspberry Black Sesame Malt Balls.

Outside of making delicious chocolate treats, what are other hobbies that you enjoy?

Traveling - it is the one thing I missed so much when the pandemic hit. My husband and I have luckily been able to start traveling again. Whenever we travel, I am always looking for artisan chocolate bonbon shops to try out, or to meet up with other chocolatiers that I’ve made friends with during the pandemic through the chocolate community, and my husband looks for craft coffee. We are pretty big foodies too, so we do a lot of really good eating as well.

During the winter I love going snowboarding. Although since I’ve started Colorado Cocoa Pod, my winters have been packed with chocolate holidays and events starting in the fall with Halloween (Oct), Thanksgiving (Nov.), Christmas/Holiday markets (Dec), Lunar New Year (Jan/Feb), Valentine’s Day (Feb), Easter (Mar/April), Mother’s Day (May), so we go when I get a day off.

Have you been able to attend any pop-up shops or markets to sell your amazing products?

Yes! In addition to selling my chocolates online, because I don’t have a storefront, I do markets and pop-ups all year around, all over Colorado. There are 3 large chocolate festivals I do in May, September, and October, and then I also partner with other small businesses to do pairings with beer, sake, wine, cheese, and bourbon. During the holidays I will do larger holiday markets such as the Horseshoe Market, Denver Bazaar, and Firsthand Market, but I have also done small pop-ups put on by other small businesses in my community.

Have you faced any challenges growing your company?

At the beginning of my business, I faced challenges with shipping and figuring out the best way to ship my products. In 2020, it was a disaster during the holidays, which was the worst of what I’ve encountered. Luckily things have gotten a lot better, albeit more expensive. 

The cost of ingredients has gone up a lot too since I’ve started, but I have been able to slowly increase my prices to offset that, and I feel like my products have greatly improved since I’ve started as well, so that helps and my customers understand.

I was challenged last year with lack of storage space, but my husband was able to help me find more freezers to temporarily store my bonbons, and since it was cleared out at the end of the year, it has been really nice having extra space and not having to worry about making too much and not having a spot to store everything.

I was also starting to outgrow hand tempering, but that was solved at the end of last year and early this year when I was able to get my two new tempering machines. My max of hand tempering was about 80 molds (on a good week), but now I am able to make 100+ a lot easier.

One challenge I feel like I am facing is trying to keep up with social media, while still being a full-time business owner. I’m not too worried about keeping up with trends, but I do rely on it heavily to reach my customers, and with changes like Instagram focusing more on reels than photos, I find it frustrating when my content isn’t ‘seen’ or pushed because it’s not a video.

The chocolate industry is a niche industry. What are some words of advice you can give entrepreneurs who want to start a chocolate/cacao company?

Make sure you are really committed. While the chocolate bonbon industry is pretty niche, it also became pretty saturated during the pandemic; with lots of people ‘becoming chocolatiers’. Online courses became a lot easier to access, which I think is awesome (I took a few online and they were great!), but it takes more than just taking a course to become a chocolatier - so don’t expect it to happen overnight or after one course. Practice makes progress, not perfection, and it’s a lot of work, time, energy, and can be pretty expensive upfront. Even though I’ve been doing this for almost 4 years, there is still so much I can improve and learn. There are a lot of resources, but be careful which ones you use, because some are great, but there is a lot of misinformation mixed in. Make sure it is something you absolutely love before turning it from a hobby into a career, because chocolate can be temperamental (pun intended), but if you feel like it’s your calling, then take the risk, because life is too short!

"There are a lot of resources, but be careful which ones you use, because some are great, but there is a lot of misinformation mixed in. Make sure it is something you absolutely love before turning it from a hobby into a career, because chocolate can be temperamental (pun intended), but if you feel like it’s your calling, then take the risk, because life is too short!"

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Photos by:
Kendra V Photography
Mellis Chocolates