Can chocolate make you happy?
Legions of chocolate devotees definitely agree, but for one native San Diegan and La Jolla resident, the answer is a resounding yes.
Jim Lantry, a genial “recovering” lobbyist and political consultant, has embraced a new chapter in life as a chocolate-maker — of high-quality dark craft chocolates — following his retirement in 2022 from the much-maligned, high-stress profession. Even though he was providing advocacy for more feel-good causes toward the end of his lobbying career, such as improved health care for autistic children, he was constantly battling for every legislative success.
“One night when we were out to dinner, the wife of one client looked up at me and said, ‘Your job is to be a professional arguer.’ And it was true. I was always arguing with people to win them over to my side,” explained Lantry, a proponent of friendly, logical persuasion rather than angry argumentation.
Jim Lantry makes all the chocolate used in the products at his Seabreeze Craft Chocolates store in Carmel Valley.
(K.C. Alfred / The San Diego Union-Tribune)
Now, greeting customers at Seabreeze Craft Chocolates in Carmel Valley, he rarely sees an angry face. He does, however, often see perplexed expressions on customers puzzling over which flavors to choose among the ever-changing selection: 130-plus hand-painted, handmade bonbon varieties, many seasonal.
Most recipes Lantry developed himself, while some others came from customers’ suggestions, including bourbon pecan chocolate pie, magnolia syrup, ginger beer with bourbon and jalapeño pepper jelly with white chocolate ganache. He has also created sugar-free and vegan bonbons, using appropriate substitutes for sugar, butter and cream, as well as chocolate charcuterie bars, chocolate spreads, hot chocolate blends and chocolate tea, made from cocoa bean husks.
His recently hired pastry chef, Josefina Arteaga, began contributing her own ideas for innovative flavor combinations. A native of Cuzco, Peru, she’s a graduate of Le Cordon Bleu in Lima, a city gaining international renown as a gourmet hot spot, where she studied culinary arts and gastronomy.
Lantry became a chocolate-maker by chance; he had always loved to cook and make desserts, but he hadn’t made chocolates. When COVID hit in March 2020 and everything shut down, he couldn’t travel to present his case face to face. He found himself with extra time on his hands while contemplating his impending retirement as he approached 70.
As a home brewer, he’d considered opening a brewery but concluded that the market in San Diego was oversaturated. He even looked at woodworking.
Then he stumbled upon a series of YouTube videos by a Toronto chocolatier. He had a eureka moment.
“I could do that,” he told himself.
Jim Lantry buys his cacao or cocoa beans exclusively from small growers that use responsible practices.
(K.C. Alfred / The San Diego Union-Tribune)
Accustomed as a lobbyist to immersing himself in vast quantities of information to educate himself on his clients’ issues, he applied that skill to learning everything he could about chocolate. He bought numerous books about chocolate-making, found a source of cocoa beans, purchased essential equipment and started making chocolate, much to his friends’ and family’s delight — and realized he was having so much fun, he wanted to delve further into the business as a potential retirement pursuit.
“I went back to YouTube. There’s a guy in Hawaii — Dylan Butterbaugh at Manoa Chocolate in Oahu — making craft chocolates, which is at the stage craft beer was 30 years ago. That appealed to me. It’s a similar market,” he said.
At that time, Butterbaugh had posted 72 videos on his CraftChocolateTV channel; Lantry watched them all. (He’s now up to 96 videos.) Lantry called him to ask a few questions. Butterbaugh invited him to come to Kailua to learn the craft chocolate business.
Three days later, in October 2021, Lantry flew to Hawaii to spend two weeks apprenticing with Butterbaugh, absorbing everything he could about making craft chocolates and running a successful business. This convinced him he wanted to open his own shop. Fourteen months later, in December 2022, he opened Seabreeze Craft Chocolates in Carmel Valley.
Along the way, he realized he was much happier making chocolate, despite the six-day weeks, long hours and loss of time with his wife, Linda Sherman, a retired immunologist who was the first female tenured professor at Scripps Research.
Lantry, who makes all the chocolate used in Seabreeze’s products, walked me through the steps in making chocolate, pointing out the machines he uses for each one. First, he roasts the beans. Then, he cracks and winnows them. Next, he grinds the nibs, which are inside the bean shell, before putting them into his 88-pound capacity melangers, which blend the beans with sugar and a little cocoa butter for added richness.
After the nibs are extracted from the roasted cocoa beans, they are ground and put into a melanger to be blended with sugar and cocoa butter.
(K.C. Alfred / The San Diego Union-Tribune)
The melangers run 24 hours a day for a minimum of 10 days to two weeks, he explained. The finished chocolate then goes into the tempering machine, which continues stirring the chocolate as it dispenses the liquid through a spout to pour into the chocolate molds.
Lantry makes Belgian-style chocolates, using molds to form the bonbons, which consist of an outer shell coating of chocolate, a filling and a final coat of chocolate.
French-style chocolates consist of ganache — an emulsion of chocolate, sugar and optional cream, liquor or other flavoring — spread onto a tray, cut into pieces and then enrobed in molten chocolate.
Visitors to Seabreeze can see the process as chocolate is made, or they can sign up for a class on making bonbons offered by the shop.
(K.C. Alfred / The San Diego Union-Tribune)
Anyone coming into Seabreeze can see most of the chocolate-making process — Lantry reports operating the only public chocolate factory in San Diego — but the best way to learn how to make chocolate bonbons is to take one of his 2½- to 3-hour adult classes, or 1½-hour children’s class, during which he also explains the origins of cocoa beans and cultivation techniques.
“Mostly, I try to make it fun more than anything else,” he said.
Lantry prides himself on using the best ingredients. He buys his cacao or cocoa beans exclusively from small growers in the Americas where he knows the farmers use responsible practices, treat their workers well and produce a consistent, high-quality product. He shuns African beans from the Ivory Coast and Ghana, where 70 percent of U.S. imports originate, because of their poor quality and bitter taste. He uses only higher-butterfat European-style butter, containing at least 82 percent butterfat, and heavy cream, with 40 percent butterfat.
Unlike bulk chocolate-makers, Lantry adds no lecithin or other emulsifier, which tends to give chocolate an unpleasant, waxy taste.
Seabreeze produces only dark chocolate and no milk chocolate, plus a small quantity of white chocolate (made from equal quantities of cocoa butter, sugar and milk powder), primarily to use in fillings.
“A lot of people who say they don’t like dark chocolate discover they like this chocolate because it doesn’t contain lecithin. We don’t compromise on the ingredients,” Lantry explained.
Life, he’s discovered, is definitely sweeter as a beans-to-bons chocolate-maker.
Seabreeze Craft Chocolates is located at 3840 Valley Centre Drive, Suite 604, San Diego 92130, telephone (858) 792-4750. For more information about the chocolates and classes, visit seabreezechocolates.com.
Seabreeze also creates items like these chocolate charcuterie bars, chocolate spreads and hot chocolate blends.
(K.C. Alfred / The San Diego Union-Tribune)
Seabreeze Basic Ganache
Ganache is an emulsion combining chocolate and cream. For best results, use “couverture” chocolate, which has a finer texture, richer flavor, higher percentage of cocoa butter and melts and coats bonbons better than regular chocolate. Suggested brands, which vary by taste, include Valrhona, Scharffenberger, Callebaut, Lindt and Ghirardelli. For ganache, the basic ratio is 3 parts chocolate to 2-3 parts cream. Add unsalted butter for extra flavor and richness. Use it alone or with your choice of flavorings as the filling for bonbons after you’ve coated your mold with melted chocolate. Alternatively, to make truffles, take a ball of ganache and roll it in your choice of cocoa powder, finely chopped nuts, coconut or other coating. Or, for French-style chocolates, pour ganache, with flavoring of your choice, into a rectangular tray; let it set before cutting it into pieces and enrobing them in melted chocolate.
Makes about 3 cups
12 ounces dark chocolate (couverture recommended)
8 to 12 ounces heavy cream
6 tablespoons softened unsalted butter (optional)
If adding liquid flavorings (i.e. bourbon, fruit purees, etc.), reduce the amount of cream by the same quantity.
Chop the chocolate into fairly even, small pieces — a heavy serrated knife works well.
Heat the cream and butter, if using, in a saucepan over medium heat or in a microwave until it begins to boil. The more cream you add, the softer the ganache will be. Remove from heat. Add the chopped chocolate to the cream. Add any liquor here, too. Wait a minute or two until most of the chocolate and butter is melted.
Once the chocolate is mostly melted, immediately whisk the mixture vigorously until it’s thick and smooth, scraping the bottom and sides of the bowl and incorporating all the cream, butter and chocolate. If you have one, an immersion blender helps make sure the emulsion is stable. You can also use a hand mixer. If adding other flavorings (i.e. extracts, fruit purees, coffee, etc.) they can be added here, whisking as you go.
If the ganache shows signs of breaking at this point (if it looks curdled or oily), you can add a few drops of warm cream to help re-emulsify it. A well-emulsified ganache should look like chocolate pudding: thick, smooth and glossy.
Cool the ganache until thick enough to scoop or spread.
Seabreeze produces only dark chocolate and a small quantity of white chocolate, primarily for use in fillings and for designs.
(K.C. Alfred/The San Diego Union-Tribune)
Seabreeze Salted Caramel
If you’re making chocolate bonbons at home, you can use this alone as a filling, or mix it with toasted pecans or other nuts, mixed with ganache or flavored with peanut butter, orange, bourbon or strawberry. First, coat your mold with melted couverture chocolate and let it set. Then put your salted caramel filling into a pastry bag and pipe it into the coated mold (or spoon it in), adding a final layer of melted chocolate after it sets.You can also use it as an ice cream topping, the caramel flavoring in crème caramel and other desserts, or as a filling or flavoring in cakes and frostings. It’s Seabreeze’s most popular flavoring.
Makes about 1¾ cups
1 cup (200 grams) granulated sugar (make sure it’s labeled “pure cane”)
6 tablespoons (90 grams) salted butter, room temperature, cut up into 6 pieces
½ cup (120 milliliters) heavy cream, at room temperature
1 teaspoon salt, or more to taste
Heat granulated sugar in a medium heavy-duty saucepan over medium heat, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon. Sugar will form clumps and eventually melt into a thick brown, amber-colored liquid as you continue to stir. Be careful not to burn it. The last few clumps will melt eventually, but once they do, it is easy to burn, so move to the next step quickly.
Once sugar is completely melted, immediately stir in the butter until melted and combined. Be careful in this step because the caramel will bubble rapidly when the butter is added. If you notice the butter separating or if the sugar clumps up, remove from heat and vigorously whisk to combine it again. You can use a handheld mixer to do this. That will make things come back together more quickly than hand whisking. Keep whisking or mixing until it comes back together, even if it takes 3 to 4 minutes. It will eventually — just keep whisking. Return to heat when it’s combined again.
After the butter has melted and combined with the caramelized sugar, stir constantly as you very slowly pour in the heavy cream. Since the heavy cream is colder than the hot caramel, the mixture will rapidly bubble when added. Be careful of the steam. After all the heavy cream has been added, stop stirring and allow to boil for 1 minute. It will rise in the pan as it boils.
Remove from heat and stir in the salt. Allow to slightly cool down before using. Caramel thickens as it cools.
Recipes by Jim Lantry, Seabreeze Craft Chocolates.
Sours Larson is a San Diego freelance writer.
