Armando Bezies is nearly an alchemist. He is an expert at taking plain brown beans and turning them into dark, rich chocolate — the kind to impress a lover.
“You take this raw bean and then you’re able to transform it into a little chocolate bon bon or a chocolate bar,” Bezies said, “It’s that change, such a drastic change in form and flavor and texture — that’s really what draws me to cooking and chocolate.”
Bezies explores a wide range of flavor profiles in his creations — white almond and chocolate coconut in one piece, pistachio chocolate peanut butter in another and because he likes to keep it local, prickly pear caramel. For those who like a bit of a bite with their sweets, there’s quince caramel made with locally grown fruit and a touch of jalapeno. Those are just a few from the wide selection Bezies has created.
What began as a side gig during the pandemic is rapidly becoming a full time job. At Tucson Chocolate Factory, Bezies forges what most people dream about — the perfect piece of chocolate. His stock is small chocolate truffles, all from scratch, which he sells on his website, at a few retail outlets and at farmers’ markets.
His work is accomplished at Market Tito’s, a ghost kitchen on the east side of Tucson. The place is squeaky clean. That’s important, not just for the obvious reasons, but because chocolate tends to take on the flavor of the odors around it. Equally important is the fact that it’s a commercial kitchen, so Bezies stays within the law.
Each truffle begins its life as a raw cocoa bean, which Bezies imports from Mexico, Ecuador, Peru or Colombia. He grinds them himself.
“Then there’s a whole process of roasting them, grinding them,” Bezies said. He uses a kind of wet grinder. “(It) mills the beans into a paste, and then over the course of several days, it transforms into the actual chocolate, and that’s what I use,” Bezies added, “At that point you can make whatever you want with it.” It’s about a week from bean to mouth.
Bezies really became interested in cooking during the pandemic, experimenting with different ways of cooking, such as grilling. He made candy — playing with the sugar and that morphed into chocolate.
“What interests me the most about cooking is transforming ingredients,” Bezies said. “Even with sugar, like when I make caramel, you’re taking sugar in its granulated form, you melt it and by controlling the temperature that you cook it, you can change it into caramel or lollipops, hard candy.”
Making high quality, delicious chocolate that’s shiny and snaps when bitten can be a challenge, as anywhere along the process the chocolate can become something that tastes awful. It turns out chocolate has six different forms and tempering helps to get the desired form.
“It’s almost like a program, the chocolate follows a program,” Bezies said. “By tempering, you melt it to a specific temperature and then you bring it down and bring it back up. It’s almost like you’re tricking the chocolate to take on a certain form.”
That’s just the chocolate shell — it doesn’t account for the tasty fillings Bezies employs. He likes to acknowledge his Sonoran Desert roots, so he uses as many local flavors as he can — like prickly pear and jalapeno. There is also Mexican hot chocolate flavor and local mesquite, hatch green chiles and mezcal, and agave nectar and saguaro caramel.
“Tucson is such a special place where we have so much history and so much culture, especially with food,” Bezies said, “By being part of the farmers’ markets and exploring Tucson itself, it has just the best, most amazing ingredients. Take, for example, the saguaro fruit of prickly pear, all of the things that we just see when we drive around the city everyday. There’s so much flavor there and so many ingredients that are available to us.”
Anyone interested in trying Bezies’ chocolates can order directly from Tucson Chocolate Factory or visit one of the retail outlets that carry his products.
Tucson Chocolate Factory
www.tucsonchocolatefactory.com
