Black Dinah Chocolatier’s Kate Shaffer has been named to Dessert Professional magazine’s third annual list of Top Ten Chocolatiers for North America. Created to honor professionals whose craft exemplifies the use of chocolate, the “top ten” is a highly diverse group from Mexico, Canada, and the United States. Three from this exclusive culinary list are from New York “islands”: Mr. Hakan Martensson and Ms. Kee Ling Tong of Manhattan, and Ms. Lauren Gockley of Queens. Ms. Shaffer is from the significantly smaller unbridged Maine island of Isle au Haut.
According to Dessert Professional magazine co-editor Matthew Stevens, he and his colleagues are introduced to “hundreds of very, very talented chocolatiers” throughout the year. For someone to be named in the top ten s/he must do more than produce a superior product: “We are looking for chocolatiers who do something that elevates the chocolate industry,” says Stevens. He explains how Kate Shaffer has done that on a number of levels: publishing a cookbook that spotlights chocolate with every recipe, naming the local farms that provide key ingredients, and doing all this all from a very small island in such a passionate way.
Says Stevens from his New York office, “In the case of Kate, she is very talented and just ‘went for it’. She represents our inspiration pick this year. She follows her calling, makes great chocolate, and does all this from a tiny little island. Not New York—who would have thought!”
Those who have observed Shaffer in the kitchen are thrilled but not surprised Dessert Professional, the “bible of the dessert industry”, is recognizing her. Island resident and Black Dinah fan Nancy Jane Calvert says, “I am constantly taken aback at Kate’s ability and knowledge when it comes to cooking and baking . . . it is really amazing to see her work in a kitchen. Her chocolates are so perfect and palette pleasing, it is a very sweet experience. Kate Shaffer is really a culinary artist.” Stevens additionally cites how well Shaffer handles blueberry and strawberry in chocolate, considered “really hard flavors” to succeed with.
Shaffer’s creations have been shipped to every state in the United States and several countries around the world, selected retailers showcase these adventurously flavored treats. Recently, the Smithsonian National Zoo used Shaffer’s signature “Frogletiers” as gifts to guests attending its premier documentary highlighting the plights of endangered amphibian species.
Kate and her husband, Steve Shaffer, began Black Dinah Chocolatiers in their rental home on the remote Penobscot Bay island of Isle au Haut in 2007. In 2010, they purchased the property from the Isle au Haut Community Development Corporation, a 22-year-old nonprofit dedicated to helping families successfully live and work on the island. In early 2011, the company moved from the couple’s home kitchen to a new, state-of-the-art, solar-powered commercial kitchen in their renovated barn. This barn-turned-chocolate factory is part of the couple’s vision and long-term plan to eventually work from a net-zero production facility. Shaffer now works with a team of four fellow islanders, relishing in the support and company she now has in the kitchen. “I love working with everyone to create something that was just a dream six years ago,” she says.
Shaffer, who learned her craft from “anyone who would teach her,” has just released Desserted: Recipes and Tales from an Island Chocolatier published by Down East Books. Her cookbook features a foreword by best-selling author and accomplished fisherman Linda Greenlaw, mouth-watering photographs by Stacey Cramp, dozens of Shaffer’s delicious chocolate recipes, and delightful essays about village life on a sparsely populated Maine island.
“I’m totally blown away by this honor,” says Shaffer. “Four years ago, Steve and I were looking out our second story office window onto a spruce forest, in the heart of an isolated island with a population of 40, convinced that no one in the world knew where we were or what we were up to. That was okay, too, but this is way better!”