How to make chocolate with pork cracklings?

At the XOCOC chocolate shop in Ptuj, you can learn how to make chocolate with pork cracklings! A fantastic experience and great fun.

In the heart of Ptuj, the oldest town in Slovenia and the holder of the European Heritage Champion title for 2026, you will find XOCOC. Pronounced Sho-ko, the name belongs to the sweetest place in Ptuj—a small boutique chocolate shop that opened a few years ago and where you can taste and purchase handmade pralines every day.

Modern travellers fall in love with XOCOC at first sight, and the city’s most beautiful sweets are also the sweetest souvenirs you can take home from this part of Slovenia. The doors of XOCOC will be opened to you by Matevž Božič, who, until the pandemic, worked as a chef at Hiša Denk. He proudly presents the pralines he prepared that day and encourages visitors to try his most creative combinations—white chocolate with Parmesan, intriguing blends of spices and fruit, and the hit combination of chocolate pralines with pork cracklings.

XOCOC is not an ordinary chocolate shop. Even if you taste just one praline, you will realise you have embarked on a journey into a world of bitter, sour and unexpected flavour harmonies. These surprising combinations are precisely why both locals and visitors happily return. People come not only to eat but also to try a new experience that Matevž introduced in 2026: a fun, interactive workshop where participants learn about chocolate, its production process, and even create their own sweet bars to take home.

“The name XOCOC may sound unusual, but it is not accidental,” says Matevž at the beginning of the workshop. He explains that the name comes from Nahuatl, the indigenous language of the Aztecs in Mexico. The root xoco refers to sour, bitter or sharp, while ātl means water or drink. Together they formed xocolātl—the original, unsweetened chocolate drink that was spicy and bitter, very different from today’s sugary treats. The European word “chocolate” ultimately derives from this expression. In Nahuatl, the letter X is pronounced like sh, so the correct pronunciation is Sho-ko, with the stress on the first syllable. With a smile, this chocolate enthusiast says he has heard many creative variations of the name—from “KSO-ko” to “ZOKO”—so the first thing he does at the workshop is teach everyone how to pronounce the brand name correctly.

Then the story of chocolate begins, explaining how a warm, sweet liquid mass eventually becomes delicious chocolate. The story starts with cocoa, which grows as a fruit on the tree Theobroma cacao—literally “food of the gods”. The beans are surrounded by sweet pulp inside colourful pods. They ferment for several days together with the pulp, developing flavour and reducing bitterness. Afterwards they are dried in the sun, which stabilises their taste for transport. The roasted beans are then shelled and ground into cocoa mass, releasing cocoa butter.

This mass is then combined with sugar and, if needed, milk powder. It is mixed for hours or even days to achieve a smooth texture and well-rounded flavours. Once the chocolate is ready—just like in Matevž’s circular chocolate fountain—it is carefully heated and cooled to ensure proper crystallisation of the cocoa butter.

At this point, participants in the sweet workshop pour the chocolate into moulds, decorating them beforehand with edible colours of their choice. To make the chocolate unique and similar to the pralines sold in the shop, it is filled with a hazelnut cream to which caramelised pork cracklings are added. To complete the filled chocolate, a layer of chocolate is poured over the cream, and the moulds are left in the cold for a few minutes so that all the flavours can combine. Then, with a simple click on the plastic mould, the chocolate is released. The unique chocolate bars are ready!

XOCOC workshops last about 90 minutes, are held in small groups, and you simply need to reserve your place online.

Photo: Nikola Zoko