The Catalan brand will be in charge of making cakes and chocolates to pay tribute to actress Judy Garland in Los Angeles, which will be attended by nearly 400 guests on June 10.

On June 10, legendary American actress and singer Judy Garland (1922–1969) would have turned one hundred years old. To commemorate this anniversary, the same day is celebrated at the elegant The Abel Club in Los Angeles. Around 400 guests are expected to attend a special galaAmong which will be the children of myth of the 40s and 50s, Liza Minnelli and Lorna and Joseph Luft, and the cream of Hollywood actors and celebrities.

The person in charge of making the special cake for this party-homage is barcelona pastry brand ChokiSpecializing in Chocolate and Famous for cronuts, which has a dozen stores in Spain. The firm will have to make about 400 identical mini-cakes for the rest of the guests, in addition to special cakes for the family, in which they will come with some special chocolates and chocolate bars. All this packed in an elegant box. “During the pandemic, the event agency in Los Angeles that was preparing the gala contacted us,” says Fernando Madrid, Choc’s founder. They knew our products and asked us if we could make cakes for the event. interested in.”

Baker gladly accepted. “They wanted a chocolate cake in honor of the actress, who could never eat it, because she loved it, but they wouldn’t let her into Hollywood. And they wanted something different from typical American desserts, which was very are sweet,” Fernando continues. “So I proposed to make a cake inspired by the fragrance of the new perfume dedicated to the actress, Judy, A Garland Fragrance, by Vincenzo Spinato that his daughters, Liza Minelli and Lorna Luft, will be present at the event.

The long-awaited cake (its appearance is a complete surprise) includes a chocolate sponge cake and a ganache With an infusion of three ingredients included in the fragrance: coriander, vanilla and pink pepper, which are also joined by grapefruit and tonka bean. The cake, which theoretically will not be sold to the public, also bears the identity of the firm: “It’s something very casual, imperfect and homemade. We presented it a month ago in Los Angeles and they loved it We’ve reinvented the perfume brought to the cake, and that was the magic that fascinated her the most”, says Fernando. Till there kilos of chocolates and other ingredients required to make the sweets would be taken.

start and success

The first Choc store was opened in Barcelona in 2013 in an old 19th-century chocolate factory, with a very casual, imperfect, homely type of pastry centered around chocolate as the main ingredient. “The first six months were very difficult and we were about to close, but starting from January 2014, we started to grow and became very successful, thanks to a product that made us very famous in Europe and the world”, according to your the creator. that product is called touchedA donut-shaped croissant transformed into a variety of cakes is its best seller (about 500 per day).

Currently, the brand has 50 varieties of products, including cronutsbiscuits, muffins, brownie cakes, chocolate chips…, which are made and finished a day in 12 stores across Spain (two of them in Madrid). This complex is different from their shop windows, which have a plethora of colors and variety of products, always under the theme of chocolates, which makes them very attractive. Fernando explains, “The textures, the colors … come from the eyes and all of these have contributed to making us famous, because there is nothing like it on the market, neither in Spain nor in the United States.”

To respond to new gastronomic trends and the new interests of its consumers, the brand has developed a wide range of vegetarian and gluten-free products. Also in Barcelona they have opened a place with the same concept but 100% gluten free which is working great.

The firm has already closed expansion projects in Andalusia and Valencia, and also in saudi arabia where they are scheduled to open a store in Riyadh at the end of June. “Saudi investors fell in love and saw that this is a concept that is not there. They have everything and the best, but nothing like it. We have several billion customers,” says Fernando. The firm also has online and home sales services.