COOKING with chocolate is always difficult.

It's easy to burn and too much moisture can ruin it.

So it's fairly impressive that Doug George is a self-taught chocolatier, with no formal training in working with chocolate.

"I've always been interested in cooking," says Doug.

"I fiddle around and if it works, I make more. If it doesn't (work), I throw it out.

"It's like life itself, isn't it? You learn along the way."

This is the philosophy he brings to his delicious range of sauces he produces with his wife, Ann.

It all started while the Georges were looking to sell their Mansfield cafe, which they had owned for five years, where Doug was chef.

Being passionate foodies, they couldn't resist the opportunity to buy another established business, Alice Langton's Sauces, which specialised in natural chocolate sauces.

The pair loved the fact that the sauces were based on the recipes of the founder's grandmother-in-law, 1920s Sydney socialite Alice Langton.

"It was an old recipe, which meant it had no preservatives or additives in it," Doug said.

"That's what people are looking for, because, nowadays, there are so many weird ingredients, numbers like 404, gums and emulsifiers, out there."

After seven years, one recipe grew into a mouth-watering range that now includes 13 chocolate sauces, seven fruit sauces, traditional sauces such as brandy and cranberry and a chocolate-dipping sauce.

"We still work from home and we make 100 to 200 units per batch, all of them by hand," says Doug.

Doug cooks, while Ann bottles and labels the sauces, and manages the business.

They continue to use natural ingredients, with sources as close as Victorian fruit growers and as far as Belgian chocolatiers.

"If you start out with a multitude of good ingredients, you'll get a good product," says Doug.

"The ingredients are weighed out, put in a pot and cooked.

"Then we add a few more ingredients, maybe do more cooking, and it's ready."

The process sounds simple enough but, with such delicate ingredients, a lot can go wrong.

Luckily, Doug has another motto for such a scenario.

"If in doubt, throw it out," he says. "You might lose a few hundred dollars for the sauce, but you'll lose thousands more in customers if you sell something that's not up to scratch."

As well as his method of trial-and-error, Doug and Ann like to talk to chefs, chocolatiers and other cooks to learn how to perfect their sauces.

Doug plans to extend his repertoire of recipes to include savoury products such as tomato sauce and chutney.

Word-of-mouth promotion has seen the pair send their sauces all over Australia and New Zealand, even Fiji.

But you won't find Alice Langton's Sauces listed in the phone book or advertised.

You'll have to head to the Mansfield supermarkets, Mansfield Regional Produce Store, or give the Georges a call.

"We're not into sales pitches," Doug explains.

"We want to let the product speak for itself."