Creating hexagonal pucks of alcohol consumption delicious chocolate is, in some way, extra difficult than it appears. As a delicious chocolate manufacturer– as opposed to a chocolatier, that crafts confections with already-made delicious chocolate– Ashley Ugarte roasts imported Mexican cacao beans herself. After that, in a little North Austin preparation cooking area, she utilizes contemporary equipment to grind them and later on solidify the delicious chocolate till it comes to be thick and glossy. Concerning half the sales at her firm, Hijita, originated from alcohol consumption delicious chocolates. For those, she stays with practice and utilizes a molino, a mill commonly utilized to make masa.
Milling baked cacao nibs right into a thick paste launches a wonderful and natural scent that advises Ugarte of maturing on both sides of the Texas-Mexico boundary, where her attraction with delicious chocolate started. Whether at her granny’s home in Nuevo Laredo or in her moms and dads’ Laredo home, Ugarte’s family members celebrations frequently consisted of a precious Mexican staple: Abuelita brand name warm delicious chocolate. Her mom, Gloria Vilches-Ugarte, would certainly warm milk in a pot and thaw a disc of the delicious chocolate in a routine that continues to be at the heart of Hijita chocolatería. Today, Ugarte’s delicious chocolates are normally vegan, and she utilizes water and oat milk in her premade beverages.
As a girl, Ugarte examined premed at Rice College, after that relocated to The golden state to end up being a bread cook. Operating At San Francisco’s Dandelion Delicious chocolate, a country wide renowned bean-to-bar manufacturer, she started a job that integrates virtuosity and clinical roughness.
Back in Texas by 2022 and prepared to begin her very own company, Ugarte located herself in a congested market controlled by united state factory-made delicious chocolate and expensive European ranges. Identified to “redeem Mexican delicious chocolate utilizing my individual story, my childhood years, and my family members experience,” she states, she started Hijita, whose name implies “little child” and mirrors her idea that more youthful generations have an obligation to protect family members practices. As she discusses it, little girls “have as much of a duty as moms and grannies.”
Ugarte’s contemporary take on an old food that came from with the Mokaya and Olmec individuals honors the advancement of Mexican delicious chocolate, which started with aboriginal components, such as cacao and vanilla, that were blended with others that got here throughout the Spanish occupation, such as sugar, cinnamon, and milk.
Delicious chocolate’s twin beginnings are stood for in Hijita’s half-woman, half-jaguar logo design, which likewise signifies the mix of societies that Ugarte has actually found out to treasure. “When I was young, being Mexican and American seemed like a weak point,” she states. “Currently I see it’s really a superpower to be both.”
Ashley Ugarte making dark delicious chocolate coverings in her Austin preparation cooking area on August 25, 2025.
Picture by Jeff Wilson
Some components typical in Hijita delicious chocolates.
Picture by Jeff Wilson
Ugarte utilizing an an infrared thermostat to cool down delicious chocolate that will certainly be contributed to mold and mildews by hand to create bars of alcohol consumption delicious chocolate.
Picture by Jeff Wilson
Ugarte including gold fallen leave to Pink Mazapán bonbons.
Picture by Jeff Wilson
Ugarte dividing ended up delicious chocolates.
Picture by Jeff Wilson
Packaging the ended up item.
Picture by Jeff Wilson
A warm put of ready alcohol consumption delicious chocolate in fit to be tied milk.
Picture by Jeff Wilson
A sheet of ended up delicious chocolates waiting to be divided and packaged.
Picture by Jeff Wilson
Hotter Chocolate
These Hijita alcohol consumption delicious chocolates are best for loss. Locate them at Austin’s Comadre Panadería, in neighborhood farmers markets, or at hijita.com.
The Original
Made utilizing 60 percent single-estate cacao from la Chinantla, an area of Oaxaca, Hijita’s timeless alcohol consumption delicious chocolate is blended with piloncillo from San Luis Potosí, vanilla beans and Ceylon cinnamon from Veracruz, and sal de manantial, a genealogical springtime salt from Puebla. Delicious chocolates offered in supermarket can go through a loads intermediaries from farmer to customer, so Hijita’s sourcing methods are an uncommon labor of love.
Cardamomo
A spin on Ugarte’s initial, this alcohol consumption delicious chocolate utilizes cacao from a
family-owned ranch in Tabasco, with cardamom from Chiapas to amp up the seasoning taste. Both the initial and the cardamomo delicious chocolates make use of cleaned cacao, instead of fermented beans, for a procedure that keeps the fruit’s polyphenols, which provide the delicious chocolate its all-natural cacao taste and have antioxidant and anti-inflammatory advantages.
Champurrado
A type of atole– a cozy beverage with masa in it– champurrado is a passionate, porridge-like delicious chocolate beverage that Hijita launches in time for Día de los Muertos. Equally as Ugarte resources cacao from ranches she’s gone to, she resources masa from her good friends at East Austin’s Mercado Transgression Nombre.
This write-up initially showed up in the October 2025 problem of Texas Regular Monthly with the heading “There Are Chocolatiers and There Are
Chocolate Makers.” Subscribe today.
