Chocolate Dragées Workshop · on video, inside the academy

Build your dragée line without complicated machinery.

Six recorded classes where you watch, start to finish, how a dragée is made: you choose the center, build the layers and set the finish. A highly profitable product that starts with a minimal investment.

6 classes · 82 minutes · 47 of them hands-on

I want the workshop · from €47 See the syllabus

Sonia Da Cruz in her black ChocoAcademy chef jacket, arms crossed in her workshop behind a table with bowls of the finished dragée range; behind her, her red-rimmed coating drum on the mixer and the air unit.

What you’re going to see

Everything a page of text can’t teach you about panning (coating the centers, layer by layer, in a rotating drum): the quantities, the moments and the instruments.

Real class inside the academy, lesson 3: sugar caramelizing over the nuts, in close-up.

Caramelize the center so the drum can’t ruin it

Before the chocolate comes anywhere near, the nut gets roasted and caramelized. Class 3 is that close-up: the sugar turning, the exact moment it’s ready, and why a center that skips this step goes soft within two weeks.

Real class inside the academy, lesson 5: an anemometer measuring the airflow at the mouth of the drum, with the reading on screen.

Measure the airflow before you blame the chocolate

Below 5.5 meters per second the process simply doesn’t work, and no photo of a finished product will ever tell you that. Class 5 puts the anemometer at the mouth of the drum and reads it on camera.

Real class inside the academy, lesson 5: a piping bag being filled with melted chocolate from the bowl, on the workbench.

Dose with a piping bag: a little at a time, many times over

The chocolate is never poured in. It goes into bags and enters little by little, several bags in rotation, in doses of about 100 grams. You see the hand, the amount and the moment.

Real class inside the academy, lesson 6: a gloved hand over a board of dragées cut in half, with the layers in view.

Look inside the layers you built

Hazelnut center, dark layer, white layer, finish on the outside. The cut on camera is the proof that the method builds structure, not just a coating.

Real class inside the academy, lesson 6: bowls with the finished range in raspberry, orange, cream, pink, cocoa and dark chocolate.

Finish with the whole range, side by side

The last class lays the batch out in bowls: same drum, same method, six different finishes. It’s the clearest answer to what you’ll actually be able to make.

Six classes, and most of it is hands in the drum.

Class 5 runs longer than the other five combined.

IntroductionWhat happens inside the drum.
Centers and chocolateWhich centers hold up, which chocolate flows, and the ratios per kilo.
Shelf life and caramelizationGum arabic, syrup at 117 °C and gelatin.
Equipment and investmentWhat to buy, what it costs and what to verify before you pay.
The hands-on batchOne kilo of hazelnuts, from start to shine.
The finished productFive finishes, four cross-section cuts and the five adjustments for soft centers.

Who’s in front of the camera

Sonia Da Cruz

Founder of ChocoAcademy

I’m Sonia Da Cruz: an electronics engineer by profession and a chocolatier by vocation. I grew up in the back room of my parents’ pastry shop and spent six years running a chocolate factory, taking it from artisan production to an industrial-grade bonbon line. Today I train chocolatiers in more than 15 countries.

I wrote the e-book “Designing Profitable Panned Confections”, and I’m the one in all six classes, with my drum and my hands.

Two ways in.

You can watch the workshop in an afternoon. The bundle adds the e-book with the method in writing and the prompts that run the numbers for you.

The workshop alone

€47

All six Dragées Workshop classes, on demand inside the academy.

6 recorded classes · 82 minutes
The full batch of class 5: 47 minutes with hands in the drum
The equipment-buying class (class 4)
Lifetime access, at your own pace

Get the workshop for €47

One-time payment · instant, lifetime access

Quick questions

What language are the classes in?: Recorded in Spanish, with professionally dubbed English audio, or the original Spanish with English subtitles. Both included.
Is it worth it if I don’t own a drum yet?: Yes. Class 4 is the buy-it-right class: which mixers can take a coating drum, and which front attachment to verify on your mixer before you pay.
Do I need a lot of equipment to start?: No. The whole workshop is filmed on a coating drum attached to a regular stand mixer, the same setup you can start with. Class 4 shows you what to buy and what to check before you pay.
Is the e-book in the bundle the same one sold separately?: Yes: the same 173-page e-book and the same Prompt Builder that sell on their own for €27. In the bundle they’re added for €20.