Zak’s Chocolate is a local, award-winning small-batch craft chocolate maker and an artisan chocolatier. We are one of a small number of chocolate shops that makes 100% of our own chocolate instead of buying it from industrial chocolate manufacturers.. And, we use only super premium, ethically-sourced cocoa beans to make our chocolate. We (Maureen & Jim, that’s us in the photo of our entire staff of two), love chocolate and we love the amazing natural flavors of fine cacao varieties. What started as Maureen’s home hobby now allows us to share our passion with you at our small workshop in Scottsdale.
At Zak’s we roast only super premium ethically sourced cocoa beans (read more here) and make our own single-origin and proprietary House Blend chocolate to use in dark, milk & white chocolate bars, as well as bonbons, truffles, brownies and other yummy confections. Everything is done by hand, from sorting cocoa beans to packaging bars to hand crafting our chocolates.
Cocoa beans are the seed of the cacao tree, and each cacao origin will taste different based on the bean variety, its growing environment and how we roast and bring out unique flavor profiles. Like coffee and wine, each cocoa bean comes from a unique terroir that impacts its flavor.
Our single-origin dark chocolate bars contain only organically farmed cocoa beans (most of which are organically certified), organic cane sugar and a small amount of cocoa butter to enhance the smoothness of our chocolate (which we press in-house from the same beans used in each origin bar). Our chocolate making style results in a chocolate that is creamy and smooth, but not bitter. All of our dark chocolate bars are vegan, gluten free and dairy free. Our colorful chocolate bar packaging is hand-made from lokta paper, a renewable source from Nepal. Inside, our bars our packaged in home-compostable cellophane.
Our milk chocolate bars are crafted with the same ingredients as our dark chocolate with the addition of organic whole milk powder. Our unique, award-winning Sonoran Desert White Chocolate is made with only three ingredients: House-pressed cocoa butter, organic whole milk powder and organic cane sugar.
We also offer a rotating selection of beautiful and tasty bonbons and caramels, including several vegan bonbons. Almost all of our bonbons are gluten free. Our bonbons and caramels are best enjoyed within 2 weeks. Our dark chocolate bars will be good for at least one year; milk and white chocolate for 6 months, if stored properly. What is proper storage? We recommend storing all chocolate in a cool/dry place, away from sun, at a temperature range of 55 – 73 degrees. If you happen to have a wine fridge, that’s a great place to store chocolate. Just let them warm up to room temp before you enjoy.
