Sweet family: Baton Rouge mom, daughter make chocolate candy ‘too pretty to eat’
By Trinity Velazquez,
2024-02-22
BATON ROUGE, La. (BRPROUD) – Baton Rouge native Maram Khalaf and her mother Aliaa make beautiful handcrafted pieces using chocolate to eat.
“My mom, Aliaa, always loved chocolate, but not American chocolate. She loved high-end chocolates from Europe, Switzerland, etc. Every time we would travel internationally she would take an extra carry-on exclusively to fill with chocolates to bring back home as a stash,” Maram Khalaf said.
Chocolate production rates in the places her mother liked dropped because of COVID-19, so she started watching videos of how to make the sweets.
“She always loved the kitchen. Cooking, baking taking after her mom. As she learned, I would take these chocolates to meetings and events, sharing them with classmates and friends, who kept saying these were too pretty to eat, they looked like jewels and that we should start selling these since they wanted some for themselves,” Maram said.
She talked to her mother about potentially starting a business.
“But she knew it would be time-consuming and lots of work. However I wanted her to continue to make these beautiful chocolates, so I decided to start the business myself, of course with her help producing the chocolates,” Maram said.
The business grew and although they are both chocolatiers, Aliaa handles the crafting and Maram is in charge of the other business needs such as marketing, the chocolate prints, sales communication and packaging.
“When everyone told us these look too pretty to eat, comparing them to jewels and gems, I decided to name our business Chocolate Bijoux to take after the French word (for) jewel since we are in Baton Rouge,” Maram said.
Chocolate making is a very intricate, precise process
“We use the finest and best quality ingredients of chocolate and cocoa butters,” Maram said. “First, every mold gets cleaned and polished, and tempered. Then we temper the cocoa butter to use for colors, then either hand paint or spray gun it onto the mold, let that dry then temper the chocolate itself, put the chocolate into the molds and let that dry.”
Chocolates made by Aliaa and Maram Khalaf. Photo courtesy of Maram Khalaf.
Everything has to be tempered at exact temperatures.
“Or it’ll not shine and give you that yummy chocolate crunch. We then fill the chocolates with fillings that are all made in-house, from nut ganaches to cafe latte to all our fillings,” Maram said. “For example, our nuts getting roasted, candied and grounded all by us. Once filled, they get capped, then flipped.”
Orders come in bundles and flavors include strawberry, candied hazelnut and caramel. Chocolate Bijoux can also be found at Light House Coffee, Juban’s Restaurant and Local Supply Baton Rouge.
They offer shipping , but Louisiana summers can sometimes be an issue.
“In the summer when it’s hot and humid, it’s harder to control tempering levels. We have to work like the Flash, rush to get them back into our chocolate fridge. Shipping in the summer is very difficult since it does melt without proper ice or cold packaging, so we try to refrain from shipping unless it’s larger orders. That’s why we are trying to work with other local businesses since we are a very local-based business,” Maram said.
Their favorite pieces to make are HoneyComb or Pistachio-Mallow. Maram said it’s something different they offer and some of their best-sellers.
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