Parfections: A Gourmet Chocolatier With Spice

Who would think up a dessert concoction involving dark chocolate and crunchy, coated wasabi peas?

Who would fill a truffle with white chocolate, mango and cayenne pepper?

Who would mix watermelon, cilantro and hot jalapenos, and cover the whole agglomeration with—you guessed it—chocolate?

Kimberley Rigby would, and does—every week.

Rigby, 43, a chocolatier since 2004, creates these unique flavors and many more at her Cockeysville store, Parfections, which celebrated its grand opening in February.

Who would say, “That's a good idea!” when a photographer jokes about a fictitious cheese-flavored truffle, after directing Rigby to “say cheese”?

Yup, still Rigby. If her chocolate can coat herbs, fruits, liqueurs and even bacon, why not cheese?

Perhaps a new flavor was just born.

Quite a few new flavors have recently been born.

“I just did a new [chocolate] bark, a toffee cashew bark, that's coming out this week,” said Rigby, who lives in Reisterstown. “And I'm actually playing right now with a strawberry balsamic truffle. And the orange-peel dark chocolate [bark]. That hasn't even been released yet.”

This past month, Rigby also came out with a new line of herbal truffles. In addition to the watermelon-cilantro-jalapeno variety, she unveiled a basil and lime white chocolate truffle, a rosemary and limoncello truffle, and a fennel and mint dark chocolate truffle, topped with a piece of black licorice.

From the Chai Latte to Mexican Heat, the truffle flavors will astound your palate, if not your vocabulary. There's the Painkiller, the Mediterranean Madness, the Grand Marnier, and the Pineapple and Rum truffles. There's a Port Wine and Cinnamon, a Lemon Grove, an Agave Latte and the dark chocolate Guinness.

Guess which kind of beer the Guinness truffle is infused with.

“Are you into any of the herbs?” Rigby asked a first time customer, Alana Roach of Phoenix, MD, who seemed interested in trying some new flavors.

“I'm into everything,” Roach replied.

Rigby directed Roach to the fennel and mint truffle, but warned her, “You've got to like dark licorice.”

“I love dark licorice, actually,” Roach said, and Rigby lit up.

“Where did this girl come from!” Rigby exclaimed. Then she went into her spiel.

“This is the fennel and mint. This is all dark chocolate, and the crushed fennel is actually infused in the cream. There's fresh mint in there, and it's topped off with a piece of black licorice.”

Roach popped the truffle right in her mouth, and after only a few seconds, said, “This is really good. I would get a whole box of this. This is amazing. It's my favorite.”

The Truffles

Rigby makes all her chocolates by hand—there are no preservatives.

“We have three weeks on our truffles,” said Rigby, in regard to shelf life. “All I use in it is the raw chocolate, heavy cream, and then whatever different liqueurs and different spices that I use.”

Rigby sells her chocolates every Thursday at Boordy Vineyards, does events with Basignani Winery, and can customize chocolates to match any local brewery.

“We work with a number of Maryland and Virginia wineries and breweries, and a number of different wine shops,” said Rigby, who will be hosting a chocolate tasting at Ellicott City's The Wine Bin on Friday, and at Notaviva Vinyards in Virginia next Saturday.

“We do pairings with the wines and the chocolates, and some of them I actually use their wines so I can do customizing, and infuse it in the chocolates,” Rigby said. “I do a lot of different spices, so if I don't use their wines actually in the chocolates, I use a lot of the hotter spices in the chocolates to kind of pull out some of the flavors in the wines and the beers.”

An example of Rigby's spicy, gourmet pairings is hickory sea salt in her chocolate that's crafted to complement a beer from Heavy Seas Brewery, in Baltimore.

“We actually use some of their beers, and infuse it in the chocolate, in the center itself, and I use certain types of salts,” Rigby said. “They use a smoked porter, and I use the hickory sea salt in the chocolate, to bring out the smoky flavors in their beers.”

Sounds yummy.

Or not—it depends if you're a bland Hershey's fan.

Rigby thinks she can win you over with her Tropical Typhoon, if your idea of experimentation is to reach for an Almond Joy instead of a Mounds.

The Tropical Typhoon is the first truffle Rigby ever made.

“I'm always trying to push it on people,” Rigby said. “It's milk chocolate with mango, cayenne pepper and it's rolled in toasted coconut.”

Rigby also converts milk chocolate lovers to the dark side.

“I don't use any real bittersweet chocolate,” said Rigby, who shaves down the 10-pound blocks of raw chocolates and blends them together. “Mine's more semisweet, so it's a softer dark chocolate. So I've actually transformed a lot of milk chocolate lovers to the dark chocolate side.”

Rigby blends several different types of chocolate to best complement each truffle.

“I use some local chocolates, like from Pennsylvania, then I use some Belgian chocolates. But I mix several different kinds in-house,” Rigby said. “I usually do a couple different kinds to contrast whatever spices or liqueurs I'm putting in there.”

Alana Roach gave the Tropical Typhoon a try.

“It's amazing,” she said. “It's amazing. It's got the sweet inside. Is that dark chocolate or milk chocolate inside? Milk? And then the coconut on the outside, it compliments it. I like the texture too, I like how it's soft on the inside, and crunchy on the outside.”

Visit Parfection's website here. Parfections is located at 10768 York Road, Suite B, right next door to Ashland Cafe.