Bleu Chocolàt Workshop

Bleu Chocolàt Workshop offers all of the following...and more:

• Over 25 different chocolate and pastry products including hand painted bonbons is a variety of island flavors, cookies, brownies, cakes and pastries featuring seasonal flavors

• Seasonal holiday treats like Christmas advent calendars, chocolate roses for Valentine's Day and chocolate Easter bunnies

• Build your own box of chocolates

• Gift boxes and baskets to order (great wedding or special event favors!)

• Custom order cakes, pastries and chocolates

• Dessert catering and custom dessert tables available for special events

• Classes and workshops on chocolate making

• Special events like chocolate tastings, wine and chocolate pairings and more

• Website coming soon featuring online ordering!

For over 30 years, Erika Dupree Cline has crafted some of the world’s most scrumptious desserts and chocolates. Known for her 'bean to bar' approach, Erika passionately crafts her chocolates from raw cacao beans to finely finished chocolate bars. Erika attended culinary school and began her career as an assistant pastry chef under Master Chef Milos in Detroit Michigan. She progressed in her field becoming a chocolatier extraordinaire and pastry chef working at several high-end properties in Detroit, Biloxi, and Memphis (at the Peabody Hotel) before becoming the pastry chef at the Ponte Vedra Inn & Club for six years. Erika then garnered a lot of media attention for opening and developing the chocolate programme for Graycliff Chocolatier at the five-star Graycliff Hotel & Restaurant in Nassau, Bahamas.

In 2011, Erika was chosen by Barry Callebaut as one of 12 leading pastry chefs and confectioners in the United States to serve as ambassadors for the company’s gourmet chocolate brands – Callebaut, Cacao Barry and Van Leer. The U.S.-based chefs joined more than 100 chefs, pastry chefs, and confectioners from around the world as members of Barry Callebaut’s Chocolate Ambassadors Club – a one-of-a-kind organization designed to educate other gourmet artisans about the fine art of chocolate.

Erika has made numerous television cooking appearances including being one of the original 2010 'cheftestants' on Bravo’s ‘Top Chef Just Desserts,’ and later as a judge for the Food Network’s ‘Rock N Roll Pastry Challenge’. She was also featured in 'Toques in Black: A Celebration of Black Chefs', a book which presents 101 Black chefs in story and recipe. Erika was interviewed on 'Black Desserts', a Black Food Folks podcast series focusing on the life and work of black pastry chefs in 2021.

In 2016, Erika launched the Bleu Chocolàt boutique in Tortola, British Virgin Islands (BVI) which ran successfully until Hurricane Irma and Maria came through in September of 2017 and devastated the community, including her home and restaurant. After the hurricanes, she rebuilt her chocolate brand in Jacksonville, Florida with the hope of eventually reopening one in the BVI. When the COVID epidemic forced the closure of the Bleu Chocolàt in Jacksonville, St. Croix was lucky enough to entice Erika to our island. Now, in addition to being the official pastry chef for Castle St. Croix, Erika is opening Bleu Chocolàt Workshop in Christiansted!

What is bean to bar chocolate?  Essentially, bean to bar is a term used to describe the process of micro-batch chocolate making from raw cacao bean to chocolate bar. Smaller chocolatiers that use this process buy small quantities of cacao, then clean, roast, crack and grind the cacao beans themselves instead of melting pre-made chocolate to make chocolate confections. The term bean to bar chocolate started as a way for small chocolate makers to distinguish their chocolate from both chocolatiers, and also mass produced chocolate.

According to Bar & Cocoa: 'Bean to bar chocolate makers control where they source each ingredient, often making single origin chocolates to show off the complexity of each cacao. The movement of bean to bar chocolate has continued to gain momentum because consumers can also taste this difference. While industrial chocolate tastes flat and lacks provenance, bean to bar chocolate contains a multitude of flavors and stories.

To achieve these results, makers must purchase small amounts of ingredients at a time, and bootstrap most of their equipment. This makes bean to bar chocolate more expensive than industrial chocolate, so small makers have had to educate their customers as to why their chocolate tastes so different and costs so much more than other “premium” chocolates.'

Erika uses this small-batch bean to bar process to make her chocolates right here on St. Croix. She plans to find local sources of cacao for now and make unique Crucian chocolate that she hopes will put St. Croix on the world chocolate map along with other Caribbean chocolate destinations like Grenada, St. Lucia, and the Dominican Republic.

Bleu Chocolàt Workshop is coming to the Caravelle Arcade in July 2023!