Nancy learned to bake with her Alsatian grandma and has kept fond memories of that time. Lots of butter and cream for most of these delicious cakes from Alsace. She always enjoyed sharing her creations with friends and families and wondered how she could expand her audience and turn it into a small business.

Nanou’s Story

After many years in tech, from working on the creation of video games to experimenting with robots, neural networks, and even semantic translations, Nancy spent a few years giving back to the Oakland community through Running for a Better Oakland, a non-profit that she led from 2016 to 2019.

It was a tough decision to move on from this latest amazing experience but the call to be more available for her grandchildren was stronger. And Nancy became Nanou for her grand children first, but also for this new phase of her life!

Nanou began to explore more flexible activities, and that led her back to her forever passion to spend time in the kitchen: a chemist at heart! Combine that with an artistic call which is half of the work in the creation of decorated chocolates and a new vocation was born.

Videogame

Nanou loves savoring a fine chocolate after a meal.

In 2020, she got frustrated when her source of crunchy praline chocolates ran out of stock.

Nanou had always been intrigued by the art of making chocolate confections, so she looked for a recipe. She landed on the Full of Plants website, bought a mold, and with no other experience made her first batch of 21 vegan praline chocolates. These were tasty, but did not look as good as Nanou wished, and after a few more attempts, decided that a class would help. In 2021, she enrolled in the Chocolatier Class at Ecole Chocolat and graduated with honors. Since then Nanou has been experimenting on her own, improving her techniques through more classes and getting inspiration in books and on social networks.