What Is Dairy-Free Chocolate — And Why Does ditto's Taste So Good?
For a long time, dairy-free chocolate had a reputation problem.
Gritty. Chalky. Too sweet. Technically chocolate, but missing the things that make chocolate feel luxurious.
That wasn’t because dairy-free chocolate was impossible, it was because it wasn’t being made with enough care.
Chocolate is a precise craft. Remove dairy, and that precision matters even more.
Chocolate starts with particle size
One of the biggest differences between average chocolate and great chocolate is something you can’t see: particle size.
When chocolate is refined, the solid particles, which are primarily cocoa and sugar, are broken down until they’re small enough to disappear on the tongue. Too large, and the chocolate feels sandy or rough. Too fine, and flavour can flatten.
We refine our chocolate using traditional stone melangers, running batches for up to 72 hours. During that time, the chocolate slowly transforms, bitterness softens, flavours round out, and texture becomes seamless.
We refine to 20 microns.
Not 25. Not 23. Not even 21. Twenty.
That number matters. It’s the point where chocolate stops feeling like particles and starts feeling like silk. If it isn’t there by Friday, we come in over the weekend. .
Tempering is where chocolate earns its finish
Refining gives chocolate flavour and smoothness. Tempering gives it structure.
Properly tempered chocolate forms the right type of cocoa butter crystals, the ones responsible for a clean snap, a glossy finish, and stability at room temperature. Get it wrong, and chocolate blooms, dulls, or melts too easily.
Tempering isn’t forgiving. A swing of even one degree Celsius can undo hours of work.
That’s why we built a temperature- and humidity-controlled room specifically for chocolate production. Chocolate is sensitive not just to heat, but to moisture and environment. Control those variables, and you give the chocolate a chance to behave exactly as it should.
We also redesigned an off-the-shelf tempering machine to suit our needs — adjusting how it heats, cools, and holds chocolate so we can temper in small batches with precision rather than volume.
Finished by hand, on purpose
Once tempered, our chocolate is hand-poured into moulds, with inclusions added as we go.
Hand-pouring lets us manage thickness, distribution, and inclusion density. It’s how we make sure a bar with hazelnuts, shortbread, or honeycomb actually delivers on what it promises, bite after bite.
Why dairy-free changes the equation
Milk solids can soften flavour and mask flaws, and without them, chocolate has nowhere to hide.
That means refinement has to be right. Tempering has to be exact. Ingredients have to be chosen carefully, and the process has to be respected from start to finish.
This is why our dairy-free chocolate succeeds where others fail, because the fundamentals are done properly. Simple.