How Yannick Alléno And Aurélien Rivoire Created Their Infamous Sugar-Free Chocolate

Yannick Alléno, one of the most Michelin-starred chefs in the world, and pastry chef Aurélien Rivoire have teamed up to create a special kind of chocolate. With Alléno's experience in the kitchen and Rivoire's pastry prowess, the duo's sweet invention has offered a new vehicle for chocolate lovers to experience the rich flavors of the treat, except with an earthier twist and much less sugar.

"I removed the sugar but not the sweetness!" Rivoire declares in a press release, acknowledging the challenges involved in updating an ingredient that is already beloved worldwide. "But we have the insolence to wish to offer a new pleasure, something that we have never tasted before," he adds.

The two have put a new spin on chocolate after carefully researching options to develop a unique extraction process and make sugar-free chocolate that can still tantalize taste buds. By replacing sugar with birch water, Rivoire has created an innovative alternative that can be used to make textured chocolate treats, such as sweets with pralines made from the husks of cocoa beans. 

Alléno and Rivoire's Pralinés sweets come in different flavors — almond, hazelnut, and Breton shortbread chips, flaxseed, pecan nuts, and puffed rice — to offer a tasting adventure for those who want to explore the world of sweetness — without any added sugars. Ganaches are also created using the pair's extraction techniques, resulting in a sweet foundation for other flavor variations to take center stage: Earl Grey, nutmeg, coffee, and vanilla. The result is a lighter taste that covers the tongue in a textured and layered tasting experience, all due to birch root.

Birch trees store minerals and vitamins in their roots during winters, and as spring seasons return, nutrient-dense water is pulled up through the trunk, and trees can be tapped for the water that contains anti-inflammatory and detoxing properties (via Hip and Healthy). Pairing this ingredient with chocolate, Alléno and Rivoire have made a sweet that not only tastes good, but is good for you, too.