The Culinary Arts program at NAIT has partnered with Callebaut Chocolate to unwrap NAIT’s very own chocolate bar — the Ook Bar.
During a trip to France in 2024, Culinary Instructors Curtis Jones and David Whitaker developed a custom blend of chocolate through a program called “Or Noir.”
Jones explained that the program allows for other shops, organizations and schools to develop a custom chocolate blend with Callebaut chocolatiers.
“We tried all their chocolates … and we kind of developed a flavour that we like,” says Jones. “We were able to take little bits from the different regions and then they made a special blend for us … a year later, after the chocolate was made, it gets shipped here and we turn it into chocolate bars,” says Jones.
Despite being dark chocolate, Jones describes the final blend as having a good sweetness to it, including notes of fruitiness, florals and an overall earthiness. The Ook Bar itself comes as plain dark chocolate, but is also available in four other flavours: sea salt, cocoa nibs, candied hazelnut and buttered toffee.
When the chocolate arrives at NAIT, Culinary Arts students in the Advanced Chocolate class use it to make the Ook Bar.
“They really get to work with it, melt it, tempering it and molding it and turning it into bars,” explains Jones.
Culinary instructors aid the students through the chocolate making process, but students still get to learn hands-on.
“The difficulty level isn’t terrible, it’s honestly just learning all the aspects that come into chocolate … it’s just a lot of information all at once. But truly these chefs have been wonderful in guiding us,” says Savannah Peterson, a Culinary Arts student.
“This industry and this program has truly just shown me all of the different avenues that you can go, and being a part of watching them create the Ook Bar has been wonderful,” she adds.
Proceeds from the Ook Bar will go towards sending a Culinary Arts student to further their chocolate education at the Callebaut Chocolate Academy in Montreal. There, the student will learn the basics of working with chocolate and take an introductory class.
The Ook bar officially launched on April 2 and is currently only being sold on campus, at the Artisanal Market and at Ernest’s.
Feature image by Ash Wijesinghe/The Nugget
