Dario Loison’s sweet obsession: Chocolate
For Loison Pasticceri, 2023 is the year of chocolate: after the Arancia Cioccolato loaf launched in the summer, the winter sees the arrival of 2 new products: the Panettone Pera Cioccolato and the Panettone Arancia Cioccolato.
For Dario Loison, it is not only a question of proposing chocolate in a unique and universal taste, but of offering a pleasure that is endowed with personality, nuances and distinctive differences.
For Loison Pasticceri, 2023 is the year of chocolate: after the Arancia Cioccolato loaf launched this summer, winter sees the arrival of 2 new products: the Panettone Pera Cioccolato and the Panettone Arancia Cioccolato.
“For me, chocolate is an evolution of confectionery, and at Loison it is gaining an important space for development by becoming an important element of our leavened products,” says Dario Loison. “To do this, however, we need time to experiment with cocoa varieties, processing techniques and combinations with other ingredients, in order to create desserts that offer sensory experiences that are still little known and that we want to offer our gourmet customers”.
It all started at the beginning of the second millennium: what inspired Dario Loison to create the Regal Cioccolato panettone, which has been baked uninterruptedly for over 20 years?
It was the early 2000s, we had just started our collaboration with Slow Food using the precious Mananara Vanilla from Madagascar, a Slow Food Presidium. We had just perfected the recipe for the classic panettone cake AD 1476, but I felt a desire to experiment with such a versatile and irresistible ingredient. There were several ideas but I was never fully satisfied, then, through countless tries, Regal Cioccolato was born, whose production has been uninterrupted for over 20 years. There must be a reason, right?
How has monocru cocoa influenced the choices in Loison pastry making?
After 2015, there was an acceleration in the use of chocolate as even small companies like ours had access to fine monocru cocoa: we chose the South American variety with a high cocoa butter content, which is characterised by particularly strong roasted flavours. However, we were not content with this alone, but wanted to emphasise our chocolate by introducing vanilla, aromas and spices in order to offer more elegant notes that would also satisfy gourmet palates.
Over the years, Dario Loison has never been content with the simple status quo, but has continued to explore and experiment with chocolate: a sweet obsession that envelops and inebriates him! So, in 2016 the meeting between Dario Loison and Mathias Bachmann, two master pastry chefs united by the same passion for chocolate, gave birth to the Panettone Gottardo.
What was the secret behind the creation of this panettone?
We wanted to create a commemorative cake to underline the historic milestone reached with the opening of the Gotthard railway tunnel; so the choice of panettone seemed the most obvious, and to give the panettone a Swiss touch, we resorted to two gastronomic emblems of the Confederation: butter from the Caseificio Gottardo di Airolo cheese factory and chocolate from the historic Felchlin brand, which come from the regions at the foot of the Gotthard mountain massif.
Then at some point chocolate alone was no longer enough….
I was always on the hunt for new challenges and in 2018 the Nerosale Panettone was born, combining dark chocolate with salted caramel, anticipating trends. This combination filled a gap in our flavour range and was inspired by the strong popularity of caramel creams in Europe and beyond.
In 2019 I then wanted to emphasise the tradition of Venice by enriching the chocolate Venetian with a fine blend of spices: Black Pepper from Lampong (Indonesia), Timut pepper (Nepal) pepper from Jamaica, Tonka bean and Mananara vanilla from Madagascar. And finally in 2021 our Tosa cake also met chocolate with salted caramel.
The year of chocolate continues to amaze at Loison: from the Arancia Cioccolata loaf of summer 2023 to the new irresistible winter creations, the Panettone Pera Cioccolato and the Panettone Arancia Cioccolato: Dario Loison is determined to make chocolate shine as a decisive element of his pastry.
A journey of over 20 years of studies and baking, characterised by dedication, passion and a continuous search for perfection, with the objective of offering authentic sensory experiences that remain impressed in the memory of those who savour them.