by Elka Worner
When it comes to gourmet chocolates it’s all about the shine and the snap.
Chocolatier Ginny Horstman demonstrates with one of her 9-inch-long chocolate surfboards in the store she opened on Hermosa Avenue in April, called Stoked Chocolates.
The snap is audible when she breaks the board in two.
“It needs to be a hard snap because that means the crystals are really well set,” Horstman explains.
Creating a superior chocolate is all about the tempering, which is the process of slowly heating and then cooling the chocolate so that the fat molecules create the right crystal formations when chocolate sets. Untempered chocolate will be dull and not break cleanly.
“It should also have a smooth and shiny finish,” Horstman said. “If you’re not doing it right the chocolate will come out streaky and cloudy.”
It’s that attention to detail and passion for the craft that shine through in each batch of artisanal chocolates orstman handmakes at the store.
Stoked Chocolates’ beach themed vibe is an ode to the laid-back Southern California lifestyle she has grown to love. Her 13-year-old daughter, Millie, is a long board surfer who is sponsored by Barahona Surfboards and competes for the Hermosa Valley School and South Bay Boardriders Club teams.
“My aesthetic is kind of like Hermosa Beach with the surfing and the beach,” Horstman said of her creations.
There’s the Doheny Berry bar made with dark chocolate and freeze dried raspberries and strawberries, with sprinkles of Pacific sea salt. There are small sand dollar bonbons, including the milk chocolate “sand dollar” with rainbow chocolate, and an assortment of caramels flavored with Japanese whiskey, salted butter, vegan coconut and espresso.
Horstman comes from a long line of restauranteurs, so the transition to entrepreneur was an easy one. Her earliest memories are of working in one of her grandfather’s 13 “Happy Clam” seafood restaurants in Virginia.
“I was in the back of the kitchen breading crab cakes and oysters for the buffet,” she said.
When she was “still in diapers,” Horstman said she would walk across the street to her grandmother’s house to make pies.
“She would put me up to the counter and we’d roll pie crust and bread the dough,” she said.
Her father, a commercial fisherman, eventually took over one of the family restaurants. Throughout middle and high school, Horstman worked at the restaurant and catered parties, weddings, and birthdays.
Her childhood experiences, she said, taught her “kitchen life” and the value of hard work.
“It’s kind of the only thing I know how to do, work in a kitchen. I tried other things. Not for me,” Horstman said.
Still, her parents weren’t too thrilled when she told them she wanted to attend culinary school.
“They lived the restaurant life and it’s just a hard life. It’s 70, 80 hours a week. No holidays, high stress, and a lot of work,” she said.
Horstman attended Baltimore International College, which she describes as a “tiny little pastry school.”
She trained under Susan Notter, a member of the Olympic Pastry Team, which competed in the World Pastry Cup, an international pastry contest in France.
Notter recognized Horstman’s talent and nominated her for a pastry course on the Amalfi Coast in Italy. The budding pastry chef and chocolatier worked long hours in Italy, making fresh croissant dough every morning and hand dipping chocolates.
“What I like about pastries and chocolate is that there is a science behind it, a real chemistry,” she said. “There’s a study to it. Once you understand that your world is open to what you can do and how you can use the different materials like sugar, and chocolate.”
When she returned to Virginia, she worked briefly as a pastry and sous chef, but then got a dream job working with renowned chocolatier Jason Andelman of Artisan Confections in Washington DC. From him, she learned the art and science of creating ganashes, chewy and liquid caramels and marshmallows fillings.
After seven years in DC, Horstman moved to California and began working at Bar au Chocolat, a boutique chocolate maker in Manhattan Beach. She worked in the chocolate room, heating and cooking the chocolate and setting it into bars.
Her hours were cut during the pandemic, and she transitioned to making her own chocolates in a commercial kitchen space in Tarzana.
“I took a 200-box order from a real estate friend,” she said.
From there she rented a space in the back of Cultured Slice in Hermosa Beach and started taking orders from clients like the Auberge Resort in Telluride. Opening her own store was a natural transition.
“I’ve poured everything I have into this store,” Horstman said. “It’s great to be in this community where my children go to school and where I see so many friendly faces.”
Her creations are a labor of love, handmade with no preservatives and chocolate sourced from the south of France. Horstman said her store has something for everyone, from a sampler box “which is really nice with a bottle of wine to share with someone you love,” to single pieces of caramels in exotic flavors.
“There’s nothing more beautiful than chocolate,” she said.
Stoked Chocolates, 1134 Hermosa Ave., Hermosa Beach
