Chef Stanton Ho embodies the classically trained pastry chef: deliberate, precise, a master of technique with a head full of recipes with which he is so familiar that he can experiment and vary the formulas without risking failure.

Ho has been in the Islands a couple of times this late summer and early fall — the latest is this week, for an anniversary party at Alan Wong's Pineapple Room, where he's making sugar and chocolate sculptures. Last month, he was here to work with Hawai'i's latest venture into the growing of cacao beans, Waialua Estate Chocolate, a "single-origin chocolate" rather like a varietal wine.

Ho was a special guest at the Easter Seals Chefs du Jour fundraiser in August, preparing a multifaceted dessert that took advantage of the locally grown chocolate in several forms — as ganache, and in two forms of mousse with praline for texture, Kona-grown dragonfruit for color and background layers of butterscotch and caramel.

Ho, who grew up in the Islands and now lives in Valencia, Calif., where he is corporate pastry chef for Chocolates á la Carte, is among only a couple of chefs who have had a chance to "play" with Waialua Estate Chocolate. Another is Alan Wong and his pastry sous chef, Michelle Karr.

At a master class for Kapi'olani Community College culinary students in August, Ho offered tips and ideas for working with chocolate, both in a ganache (a cream and chocolate blend that's used for everything from frosting to filling chocolates) and mousse.

He also showed how to make a key ingredient in many desserts: browned-sugar caramel — plain granulated sugar carefully caramelized in a nonstick pan. He noted that, in America, we prefer a lighter caramel; in Europe, they generally take caramel further, for deeper color and slightly more bitter flavor.

He warned students, when adding chopped chocolate or chocolate chips into a warm mixture, to stir from the center to emulsify the chocolate well without incorporating too much air.

Similarly, when adding whipped cream to a mixture, he suggests adding the cream one-third at a time and folding it in, turning and lifting vertically with a paddle or wide spatula, rather than stirring in a circular fashion, which tends to break down the air in the whipped cream.

And he reminded students that if a chocolate recipe does fail, there's generally a way to save it. Lumpy chocolate can be gently re-melted in the microwave, for example. He preached the all-important philosophy of waste control: "You can always make something from a failed product. Chocolate and all these ingredients are expensive. You've got to try to re-use things. Make chocolate-chip cookies or something."

CACAO'S CHARACTER

Ho said a key trend in chocolate is single-estate chocolate — chocolate that exhibits "terroir," flavors created by the climate, soil and growing conditions of the cacao, as well as the variety and processing.

Ho described Waialua Estate Chocolate as offering a hint of coffee (it grows on or near coffee lands) with a very mild, smooth, distinct flavor.

Ho introduced Dole coffee operations manager Michael J. Conway, who supervises the 20 acres of cacao fields on former pineapple lands at about 18 feet above sea level with a good degree of heat and humidity and a minimum of wind, three factors the football-shaped pods favor.

One reason for Waialua Estate Chocolate's particular character is that no one really knows exactly what varieties are being grown. Three years ago, Dole owner David H. Murdock sent Conway around the Islands looking for previous cacao plantings to serve as the heart of a new operation. Conway found an overgrown plot of beans from a long-ago project by the now-defunct Amfac on Maui; the fields had been abandoned, and the labeling disappeared and faded. So these are one of a kind.

Conway explained that cacao trees are ecologically friendly; they're using the bare minimum of inorganic pesticides, and the trees don't need a lot of processing.

The chocolate isn't made here; Dole has hired San Francisco-based Guittard Chocolate Co. However, the all-important fermentation stage, during which the cacao beans (harvested from March to June at the rate of about 35 to 40 beans per pod) is conducted here.

The beans are placed in special boxes and allowed to ferment for six days. This is a tricky process: "If you don't get it right, you can ruin the whole batch," said Conway. Afterward, the beans are spread on a rack to dry; once they've achieved the proper moisture content, they're sent off to Guittard for the final chocolate-making steps.

Right now, Waialua Estate Chocolate is scarce: Besides appearing on Alan Wong's Restaurant's dessert menu, the chocolate is sold only at the Dole Plantation Store on O'ahu and the Four Seasons hotels on Lana'i. A box of 50-gram (1.7-ounce) bars — 70 percent cocoa content dark, bittersweet chocolate — sells for $6.50 under the Dole Plantations label, Conway said.

Conway is proud to say that he and cacao growers who've made local chocolate here before have proven that something can be done that defied conventional wisdom. It was commonly believed that cacao could be properly grown, fermented and dried only within 6 degrees of the equator. But Hawai'i's chocolate is grown 20 degrees from the equator, and Guittard's experts have been enthusiastic about its flavor.

Reach Wanda A. Adams at wadams@honoluluadvertiser.com.