Soklet thumbprint cookies

The story of India’s first tree to bar chocolate brand is nothing short of extraordinary. I love telling their story and have been a loyal customer ever since they started with their cooking chocolate. Their cacao farm is about a 2 hour car journey from where I live. The farm is situated close to a small town called Pollachi.

Picture credits – Soklet

Acres of coconut groves and agricultural lands with small water bodies adds to the beauty of the countryside here. Harish Manoj ,the co-founder of Soklet is part of the new generation of Indian farmers where tradition and modern practices are integrated to successfully   continue on the path of sustainable agriculture. The cacao farm is home to a large expanse where thrives other species like nutmeg and coconut among so much of other indigenous flora and fauna.

Karthikeyan Palanisamy , co-founder of Soklet is not just a foodie but an innovative and talented hobby cook. His meals are gastronomic delights of flavours and textures and that very passion is what drives him to excelling in making fine chocolate. The brand has added many other products like cocoa powder, drinking chocolate in very interesting flavours; filter kaapi , spiced and plain and a huge range of ready to eat chocolate bars.

Having showcased their ready to eat bars in many chocolate festivals abroad, they have won several accolades and succeeded in getting their brand noticed. The products are available in stores in many cities as well as on their website www.soklet.in.

After we decided to remove compound chocolate from our home made cakes and cookies, many years ago, we had no choice but to source chocolate couverture from abroad. So you can imagine my delight when people from my home town began producing India’s first tree to bar chocolate. That means that a customer can trace this bar of chocolate directly to the farm and it is all managed by one brand. Isn’t that spectacular ?

The brand name ‘Soklet’ is pure genius actually… It mimics the way the word chocolate is pronounced in Tamil language 🙂

The chocolate made here contains no refined ingredients, (only cane sugar) ,no hydrogenated fats and no preservatives. If you are a chocoholic like me , you will love the rich taste of these chocolates. The chocolate hazelnut spread has been launched recently and it has been a source of much joy in our household because we gave up buying nutella awhile agho. Not my doing , I promise…the children read about the palm oil and the damage to the environment and decided to give it up.

The moment we saw the spread on their instagram page, we ordered 2 bottles and just had to make a batch of these soklet filled thumbprints.

I do hope you will check out this brand and show some support for many reasons. It takes a lot of work to use the right ingredients to make products which still feel like a treat while simultaneously  caring for the environment and still having to think about earning a profit.

If we want real food entrepreneurs to succeed then we must simply put our money where it is worth !

These hardworking gentlemen are supported in this venture by their wives who add a great deal by way of back end work ,creatives, flavour ideas and that beautiful packaging which celebrates the traditional temple borders of South Indian sarees…. in a stylish black and gold.