Askinosie Chocolate’s latest creation is chocolate-covered malt balls.

The team at Askinosie creates these chocolate-covered malt balls in a several step process that takes eight hours per batch.

First, melted single origin chocolate — made with cocoa beans the company sources directly from a female-led farmer group in rural Tanzania — is hand-ladled over rich malt balls, which are nestled in a panner.

While the malt balls spin and tumble over one another for about eight hours in the panner, more chocolate is delicately added every few minutes to ensure smooth, even coverage. Unpolished and without the addition of a shiny additive, the handmade malt balls have a rustic look and feel. The chocolate-covered malt balls are so special that the small Askinosie factory (of 16 employees) added a weekend shift dedicated to their creation.

“I was inspired to make these because it’s my wife Caron’s favorite candy,” say Shawn Askinosie, founder and ceo of Askinosie Chocolate. “We’re the first craft chocolate makers that I know of, who are producing them! They’re basically an artisanal Whopper. We’ve spent the last 14 months perfecting the process and the recipe and we couldn’t be more excited with the results.”