Recently featured on BBC The River, The Chocolate Factory in Peebles, near Edinburgh is home to a small, dedicated team of professional chocolatiers and pastry chefs. Each member of the team is handpicked and trained by Ruth. They all share a passion for working with chocolate.

Working at The Chocolate Factory allows the team to unleash their creative talents. There’s no such thing as a typical day. Depending on the project, the team can find themselves spraying, moulding, carving and glazing all day long.

Did you know that chocolate flavour is determined by the cocoa plant, growing conditions and soil type? One of Ruth’s key roles at The Chocolate Factory is to identify the flavour of each chocolate and develop recipes that complement it. The more subtle chocolate flavours include: fruity, aromatic, tobacco, peppery, spicy, citrus and liquorice.

Before it can be worked, chocolate must first be tempered. Tempering is an essential technique that gives chocolate a smooth, glossy finish and satisfying bite. The process involves manipulating chocolate through various temperature points to align its crystals.

If you’d like to learn how to temper chocolate, The Chocolate & Pastry School offers half day classes and Ruth Hinks masterclasses during which the technique is practiced.

When chocolate arrives at The Chocolate Factory, almost anything can happen to it. As well as the key ingredient in Cocoa Black boxed chocolates and celebration cakes, it’s often used for more bespoke projects.

Kenny is kitchen assistant at Cocoa Black. He’s a firm favourite of staff and customers and loves to sing and tell stories of past glories.

He enjoys a rum and has no respect for protocol or position often referring to Ruth as ‘hen’. If Kenny feels he’s something important to say, he’ll stand on an upturned bread crate to emphasis his point.

Kenny is Ruth’s secret source of information for everything that’s happening at Cocoa Black.