How Annie Rupani Pivoted from Law School to Cacao & Cardamom
Chocolate is a passion for many and while Annie Rupani’s plan was to attend law school, reading about chocolate-making during her downtime while at university led her to change directions. In 2014, she opened Cacao & Cardamom in Houston.
Annie Rupani of Cacao & Cardamom
Born and raised in the United States, Rupani spent six months in Pakistan after graduating from college and before she anticipated starting law school. But she gradually shifted from law to chocolate, incorporating spices and flavors reflecting her Pakistani heritage and global travels into gorgeous chocolate bonbons and truffles.
Of the transition she shares, “I knew a lot of people who were not having a great time in the field of law” adding, “I had started playing a lot in the culinary field. Dark chocolate is very healthy, so I was utilizing it as a healthy dessert. While I was in Pakistan, I was still doing a lot of research on chocolate and then I took a chocolate-making class in Malaysia. I later met the chef for the Houston racquet club, who was a chocolatier too, and I interned with him for three months. Then I had a table at a 2013 Curry Crawl event and ABC news interviewed me. It made me think [chocolate making] could really be a business and I started taking it a little more seriously.”
Making Chocolate Creatively
Cacao & Cardamom confections photo credit Lisa Waterman Gray
Rupani primarily uses high-quality bean-to-bar chocolate from Valrhona. Her confection flavors include evocative combinations such as Cardamom Rose, Strawberry Szechuan, Garam Masala Pistachio, and Black Sesame Ginger. Rupani’s heritage and travels have always played a significant role in shaping her chocolate flavor profiles. “It’s definitely part of how I was raised,” she says. “Every day we had Pakistani food and we never lived without having traditional spices. I felt like maybe I could incorporate that into the chocolates.”
Her beautiful confections also show her creative side. Says Rupani, “We hand-paint our chocolates and we use colored cocoa butter because natural colors just don’t come out vibrant enough. We might paint [individual chocolates] with an airbrush, a toothbrush, or a sponge. We also order lots of different molds such as from Chocolate World, although we have created some custom molds too.”
Additional diverse flavor combinations include the Blueberry Lime bonbon, with a visible fruit layer providing delicious counterpoint to adjacent lime flavor. Five Spice Praline features a touch of chewiness and a bit of heat, while Macadamia Praline is creamy with some subtle nuttiness.
Gooey, sticky marshmallow and a tiny crunch emanates from the S’Mores bonbon, while Garam Masala Pistachio leaves a little mild heat in the back of the throat. And the Mango Caramel bonbon is captivating even for mango haters, with its sweet fruitiness and gooey caramel.
Cacao & Cardamom box photo credit Lisa Waterman Gray
As exquisitely beautiful as Rupani’s bon bons and truffles are, Cacao & Cardamom’s packaging is equally gorgeous. Opening the tall black box with gold lettering and logo is like opening a many-faceted holiday gift, from individual papers and small plastic ‘trays’ that surround each chocolate to a jaw-dropping multi-tiered visual delight once the box is completely open.
In addition, a small information sheet features a QR code leading to the company’s chocolate collection. “With your eyes being the first thing that experiences the chocolate, I felt like it needed a special presentation, as well,” Rupani says. “We have standard boxes of chocolates, but we also have a ‘build-your-own-box’ option, online.”
Future Plans
Annie Rupani making chocolate bon bons
Cacao & Cardamom is growing exponentially via the Internet and gearing up for the holiday season. Already shipping chocolate across the U.S., to Canada, and to France, Rupani wants to continue expanding the company’s customer base. Her goal for Cacao & Cardamom customers is that they really learn to appreciate and savor chocolate the way it was always been meant to be appreciated.
Rupani wants them to “really understand what the flavors of cacao bring to the world, because large companies have neutralized cacao flavor of cacao used in volume. “We’re trying to create chocolate that is more specialized and unique in flavor.”