Earlier than Alessia Benavides bought her first bonbon at Chocolatl, she taught lessons in a back-of-the-house kitchen.
She taught one group of scholars easy methods to make conchas, a second easy methods to bake sourdough bread.
Why train?
To run a profitable enterprise in Stone Oak, Benavides needed to promote greater than chocolate. Hire is pricey. Utilities are expensive. So she turned her kitchen right into a classroom. After which she started promoting candies — two weeks earlier than Valentine’s Day.
“Simply from the candies alone,” Benavides mentioned, “we wouldn’t survive.”
Benavides is a uncommon chocolatier in San Antonio. She bakes and teaches out of the identical store, the place 90-minute to 2-hour lessons vary from $32 for cookie adorning to $75 for sourdough bread making. She sells confections in home, at native markets and on-line.
Credentials?
A shelf throughout from the Chocolatl pastry case holds a number of awards. One is from the Texas Culinary Affiliation, which named her Pastry Chef of the 12 months for 2024. One other is from CultureMap San Antonio, which named her Tastemaker’s Pastry Chef of the 12 months for 2025.
“Her gleaming bonbons should be seen in individual to get the total impact,” CultureMap wrote.
The Tastemaker award prompted the next publish on her Fb web page: “This achievement displays not solely my ardour for pastry arts but additionally the laborious work and dedication that goes into creating beautiful desserts,” Benavides wrote. “I’m extremely grateful for the help of my group, mentors, and everybody who has been a part of my culinary journey.”
That journey started in Mexico, the place Benavides realized to bake from her grandmother. She acquired formal coaching and a bachelor’s diploma in culinary arts from Universidad Regiomontana in Monterrey. She moved to Texas in 2010 and earned a bakery and pastry certification from Le Cordon Bleu in Austin.
Benavides labored in a lodge restaurant earlier than transferring to San Antonio to show on the Artwork Institute from 2012 till it closed in 2023. Her college students realized effectively. She employed one in every of them, Giselle Ramos, as Chocolatl’s assistant pastry chef.
“She taught me virtually all the things about baking on the Artwork Institute,” Ramos mentioned. “She taught me easy methods to do all the things fairly and make it saleable. And right here (at Chocolatl), she taught me easy methods to make bonbons, easy methods to paint them, easy methods to fill them and easy methods to make the fillings. And he or she taught me easy methods to make conchas.”
The COVID-19 pandemic prompted a pivot. As companies shuttered, Benavides started to concentrate on the artwork of chocolate-making. To enhance her craft, she earned chocolatier certification from the Melissa Coppel Chocolate and Confectionery College in Las Vegas.
From there, she crafted her personal recipes, experimented with formulations and flavors and bought candies at pop-ups and farmers markets. In January, she opened Chocolatl.
Benavides makes use of Valrhona chocolate, a famend French luxurious producer thought of the Rolls Royce of candies, in her bonbons. The confections are created in a mildew and adorned by hand. Although usually consumed entire, they don’t seem to be meant to be eaten that approach.
“You’re speculated to chunk into it so you possibly can see the layers of the bonbons,” Benavides mentioned. “Most of our bonbons have two or three layers. We’ve a blueberry pie that has 4. There’s artwork on the skin and likewise on the within.”
The 4 layers of the blueberry bonbon: blueberry pâte de fruit, marshmallow, lemon curd ganache and graham cracker crunch with freeze dried blueberries.
Chocolatl options greater than 30 common, seasonal and truffle flavors, from pistachio and peppermint to Mexican chocolate and guava cheesecake.
Benavides additionally sells artisan bars, dragées and an assortment of pastries, amongst them: Dubai chocolate chip cookies, Dubai conchas, Dubai brownies and fruit tarts.
For these with dietary restrictions, Benavides provides confections with sugar-free substances.
Working at Chocolatl, Ramos says, is greater than candy pleasure. It’s a type of remedy.
“I served 21 years within the Military,” she mentioned. “I’ve PTSD. A health care provider instructed me it will be good if I had been to do remedy. For me, it’s very therapeutic to work right here. I drive in from Marbach Highway. It takes me half-hour to get right here. But it surely’s definitely worth the drive. I like it.”
