About Jessica
For Jessica Foster, making truffles is an expressive epicurean art. With her diverse palate of Belgian chocolates, she blends exotic teas, herbs and spices, infusing her confections to create intriguing flavors like dark chocolate chile and milk chocolate star anise-thyme. Her inspiration surrounds her and by means of this decadent medium, she creates sumptuous chocolate pieces, sculpting each one lovingly by hand.
Raised on California’s central coast, Jessica has always appreciated the honesty of artisanal foods, the purity of ingredients and the simple process of creating a product by hand from start to finish. She began experimenting with chocolate in 2001, making a few truffles laced with local delicacies as gifts. Today she continues to wander the Farmers’ Market in search of fresh herbs and ripe fruit to create sumptuous flavors like dark chocolate orange, tangy meyer lemon and white chocolate lavender that reflect the vibrancy of Santa Barbara’s coastal bounty.
Many of her exotic blends, however, have been inspired by Jessica’s travels abroad. She has a talent for capturing the essence of a place, putting the sensual aromas and soul-stirring flavors in a swirl of chocolate cream. While living and studying in Alicante, Spain, she tasted piquant curries and chiles, and savored the aromas of orange blossoms and saffron. Today, each of these essential flavors can be seen as inspiration for one of her deeply satisfying chocolate truffles.
As with any art, truffle making requires a graceful balance of creativity and technical proficiency. Over the course of four years, Jessica had the opportunity to learn crucial culinary skills and garner experience while working her way from prep cook to pastry chef at top local restaurants in Santa Barbara and along the Central Coast. She apprenticed with talented chefs who introduced her to the intricacies of working with chocolate and helped her refine her own creative methods.
In September of 2003, Jessica’s passion for crafting fine chocolates inspired her to launch Jessica Foster Confections. Since then, her company has enjoyed tremendous success, expanding rapidly and providing gourmet sweets to an ever-increasing clientele. As a gifted chocolatier, Jessica continues to develop new, enticingly exotic truffles that, with their rich, inspired flavors and natural purity, reflect the creative energy and love that she puts into each succulent piece.