The Chocolate River

September News

noreply@blogger.com (NezzysMom) — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 14:33:00 +0000

We are gearing up for the Autumn Holidays and our first big test was First Saturday. First Saturday is designed to get college kids downtown to see what's available. We saw a lot of kids through the door and a couple hundred tried to guess our Mystery Flavor. We gave them a couple hints and 65 guessed correctly. I made about 480 samples to last 5 hours but they were pretty much gone by 4:00. The Mystery Flavor turned out to be Sour Apple and it was actually very good. So good in fact, we may end up adding it to our case in the near future!

We've added another new flavor of fudge: Maple Walnut. Ellen is making this one and it uses local maple syrup. I'm not a big maple fan but this fudge really tastes like maple syrup right out of the bottle and that's the only stuff I like.

Our Cornwall Turtles have made a reappearance to the case as well. They are bigger than before and will not fit in our trays so they will be sold by the weight. As with our nut clusters and toffee, we are trying to sell those awkward things that don't fit in our trays by weight. It's really better for the customer since they are paying for exactly what they get. Otherwise, we'd have to pick out the smallest cluster in order to fit in a tray. I've found that most people don't mix the clusters with the creams, or they just forget about them because they are in a different case. But when people get clusters, that's all they get so I think this switch to selling by weight only is a good one for all.

Our Flavor of the Month is Tom! Named for Tom, our Saturday help, and Ellen's hubby, he finally got his own flavor to snack on. The Tom chocolate is a white chocolate shell with peanut butter filling. Hope he likes it! LOL.

We've also begun making Chocolate Spoons. These will be a Winter seasonal item to start but if people get hooked, we may make them all year. The Chocolate Spoon is a solid chocolate on a handle that allows you to swirl it into a hot beverage like coffee or hot cocoa. We add a touch of flavor to some of them. We have Irish Cream, Hazelnut, and Amaretto. I dunked a plain Dark chocolate one into my cheap packet of cocoa the other day and it was transformed into a chocolaty delight. I was surprised by how much of a difference it made. So when I can't get the gourmet cocoa that I make, I can have a chocolate spoon on hand to make up for it! These spoons just dissolve in the hot liquid in a minute.

I would even think that you can make hot chocolate from them by swirling them into hot milk. For my tastes, I might need a couple spoons, however, as I like a rich Chocolate flavor in my hot cocoa. If it tastes like sweet milk, then it's not for me! That's why if anyone has tried our St. Lawrence Hot Chocolate knows that it's only for those who like to drink their chocolate! I go for rich chocolaty flavor NOT sweet, NOT milky. This is closer to how the ancient Aztecs consumed their chocolate. It was a bitter drink. It was not made with milk; it was made with water. So I can't wait to make up a batch of our Northern Nights Cocoa and try a chocolate spoon in that! AWESOME!

We are heading for Atlantic City this weekend to attend the Philadephia Candy Show. Ellen goes every year to see what's new with chocolate. So no doubt we'll come home with some brand new ideas to try out in the kitchen and add to our stock!

Newest Addition

noreply@blogger.com (NezzysMom) — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 21:46:00 +0000

We have finally relented... we now have fudge. We call it Tooley Two-Tone Fudge. It is not a traditional fudge... but is a very dense and creamy fudge. We have been making this for years, and I believe the recipe originated from one of our Aunts... Addie or Anne I believe. I will post a photo as soon as I can. We were going to call it Thanksgiving Fudge, because that seemed to be about the only time we really made it. And of course it is still a Holiday favorite.

The FOTM (Flavor of the Month) is white chocolate with a root beer flavored center. We call them Beverlys, after our mom. One of her favorite summer treats is a root beer float. She is quite a connoisseur. I remember one summer in Connecticut, visiting Aunt Addie we had root beer floats, and mom declared it had to be the best one she ever had. Not sure if any others have even come close to that one. Anyway the Beverly at St. Lawrence Chocolate is a small white chocolate morsel with a gold cocoa butter stripe, and of course with a root beer flavored center. They are only here for the month of August... but already we have had at least two requests to keep them on as a regular flavor.

With in the next couple of weeks we will also be trying our a Maple Fudge recipe. The first one crystalized too much and crumbled. Maple syrup is a tricky incredient. And we will also be creating chocolate coffee spons in Hazelnut, Ameretto, Irish Cream and plain chocolate.

SummerFest 2009

noreply@blogger.com (NezzysMom) — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 21:33:00 +0000

Potsdam SummerFest 2009 was a great time for the most part. Only the driving rain late Saturday morning put a bit of damper on the craft show in the park. Business was lively Thursday and beautiful weather on Friday made it a great day to be out and about in the North Country. The clouds parted enough by the afternoon on Saturday, that the Willy Wonka Boat Float didn't sink, and was a fun experience for all of us. The float included Wilamena Wonka, Violet after she turned into a blueberry, four oompa loompas and one chocolate lab.... the same dog for which we named Red Gunner Bites (milk chocolate clusters with bits of pretzels.)
Blueberry creams are the flavor of the month and have been quite popular in both milk and dark. Next month will be a one called a Beverly, after our mother...it will be a root beer float flavor, one of her favorite treats.
Just a couple more photos of the day...

The Approach of Summer Fest

noreply@blogger.com (NezzysMom) — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 22:17:00 +0000

This will be the shop's third Potsdam Summer Festival. We are pretty excited about participating in the local parade this year. We are creating the Willy Wonka Boat Float! We will have a Violet after she turned into a blueberry, Wilamena Wanka (Willie's long lost sister, who finally got into the family biz), and three oompa loompas. We will be handing out Willy Wonka jaw breakers and Laffy Taffy. So if you are in the Potsdam, NY area on July 10, be sure to stick around for the late afternoon parade and say to the gals.

We are also very stoked about our newest flavor, inspired by request from our lactose intolerant customers. We have created dark soy truffles... and they are very tasty, if we do say so ourselves. We started with the dark/dark version, and have also created a dark with dark raspberry. So spread the word... who said you can't enjoy truffles!

Another new addition is the Dark Almond Toffee. The butter crunch toffee has dark chocolate on each side, with almonds sprinkled on top. It as a delightful crispness to it, and that stick to your teeth effect.

And for that Flavor of the Month for June is Pitcairn Apricot (Apricot Jell in Dark Chocolate.) The apricot is very suttle in this one. July's flavor of the month will be Blake Blueberry. When we were kids and visiting relatives at the Blake-McNeil Campsite in South Colton, the blueberries grew wild around the campsites. It was a nice fresh taste on cereal. Then Dad started growing some tame ones at home... you had to get them quickly however, or else the birds beat us to them.

Our goal is to continue to add more flavors unti we have completely filled our two cooler cases. We have severl slots we can fill... so keep checking back for our newest flavors over the next few months.

Flavors and Requests: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

adkwyvern@yahoo.com (bbloo) — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 14:54:00 +0000

People always ask us where we come up with new flavors. Mostly we read what other chocolatiers are doing and try to figure out how they did that! But sometimes we just say, "that sounds really good" and give it a try. Customers also come in the shop and request certain things. We take these under consideration as there are some things people request that we have already decided we will not ever make.

Flavors. The Good:
Our Flavor of the Month for June is the Pitcairn Apricot. It's an apricot jelly in dark chocolate. We spray a bit of cocoa butter on the outside of the chocolate to distinguish it from our Saint. We used the name from our dunked apricots that we used to do. It just took too much time to dunk every single apricot! We were thinking of another jell since our Saint is so popular and decided to try this one. Not a big hit so far but the month ain't over yet!

The Bad:
A flavor that hasn't worked out is the Raspberry Fluff. In fact, we'll sell through what we have and then not make it again. I was experimenting with another white chocolate piece and decided to use a jar of Raspberry Marshmallow Fluff for a filling, similar to our Dekalb Delights. But the raspberry flavor of the fluff seems too "artificial" and it doesn't seem to be popular. White chocolate is hard to pair with a filling as it already so sweet. Back to the drawing board.

The Ugly:
While I hesitate to call our new Toffee ugly, it is a bulk item and therefore does not fit into our standard box with tray. For a "bark" type item, it looks pretty classy. We've had a few people ask if we have toffee and Ellen began looking up a few recipes. She finally got around to making one and it turned out quite well. Toffee is a hard confection but not as hard as a brittle. It has a taste range from caramel to brown sugar. Our toffee is also coated in our 64% dark chocolate on both sides then sprinkled with crushed almonds. We just added it to the case this week and it is only sold by weight. But it really is something you have to try.

Customer Requests:
The Good:
We had a request for a dairy-free truffle. Our traditional truffle ganache is made with cream and so is not dairy free. Our dark chocolate, however, is dairy-free and so is the "creme" filling we make. One of our customers suggested using Soy Milk rather than cream in the ganache and that would make the dark truffles dairy-free. Ellen gave it a shot and the filling firmed up to our standard and the truffles came out nicely. So we now have Soy Dark Truffles added to our case. While some people cringe when we tell them that they are soy, the truffle tastes very good. It's a great option for those who can't have dairy or are Vegan.

The Bad:
Okay, here's our dirty little secret, but you didn't hear it from me. We don't make Sponge Candy and we never will. This is an absolute. Don't bother asking, don't try begging, don't tell us how easy it is to make, how you loved it so much as a child and it brings back such fond memories every time you have a piece...Don't bother. We do not make it.
We have debated about carrying it. We can get Sponge Candy from Asher's which is the company that makes our Sugar Free line and our Coconut Clusters (which is one of our more popular sellers). It seems to be a regional taste...most people who ask about it are from Western NY or were from there originally. It also is popular in the Midwest US, I'm told. Ellen and I had never heard of it until we opened this shop and then did some research.
Sponge candy is not soft, like a sponge. It is named sponge candy for the porous appearance it has; lot's of little holes. But it's hard and crunchy. It has a strong Molasses flavor. This candy can then be dunked into chocolate. We don't make it. We won't make it.
Here's the reasoning. We don't like it. While we make things that we don't like (I don't like the Sugar Shack but it's one of our most popular flavors), everyone in our family doesn't like this candy. It's also time consuming to dunk each individual piece into the chocolate. We hand-dip everything and dunking little pieces is not just labor-intensive but it can really mess up the tempered batch of chocolate leading to a lot of waste. The sponge candy is also tough to cut through once it's set. You need a saw to get through it. While you could just break it up like we do our bark, the more uniform the pieces the better they fit in a box. When you're buying a box of chocolates as a gift, you like the lid to close and the chocolates to fit into their slots.
Oh sure, we could sell it bulk like we do the toffee and the bark, but you've missed the point. We don't like it.
Our apologies to those that love sponge candy and have requested it of us. We will not make it. It's just one of those things.

The Ugly:
Another request that simply can't be fulfilled is the ever-popular chocolate covered strawberry. I know they look so good in magazines and in those recipe books with the fondue pots. They are so romantic and sensuous. They aren't really that hard to make. The hardest part is finding the proper size berries and having them ripe.
So why don't we make them? Why don't we have them?
Strawberries are perishable. It's like any fruit that you buy at the grocery store. If you don't consume it in a few days, it's garbage bound. We have discovered with strawberries that after dunking they last 24 hours before the juices start to run out of them and the tops begin to shrivel. And let's face it, nobody is gonna buy something that looks like it's rotting!
As a small shop with only a small number of people through the doors on a daily basis, it isn't feasible to make these delights. It's also not something that you can save for later. If you don't consume the strawberry when you buy it, you might not want to eat it at all because it's gone bad. Strawberries are a real mess when the begin to rot. They exude a puddle of reddish goo as they shrivel up into just a dry husk. Have I talked you out of this yet?
We don't have any magic fairy dust that allows us to preserve strawberries any longer than you do with your refrigerator. We don't have any method that keeps these things fresh. We have to dunk and eat the SAME DAY or they go to waste. Not to mention that when you buy a quart of strawberries not all of them are fit for dunking.
That's why we only do strawberries when Ellen feels like it. I don't think too many people want to pay the true expense and cost of a chocolate covered strawberry. They just become ugly.

We always love to hear people's requests and try our best to accommodate. We can't make everything, we know, and some things just aren't feasible for us, but we love still to hear the requests. It lets us know what people are craving and how we can serve our customers better in the future. We're still working on some requests, like candied/chocolate covered ginger, our Wine Truffles, and maple sugar candy. So stop by the shop and tell us what you're craving. What's the worst I can say?

The REALLY Big Show

noreply@blogger.com (NezzysMom) — Sat, 23 May 2009 21:18:00 +0000

On May 29 and 30, the St. Lawrence County Chamber is hosting The Really BIG Show: Home, Garden and Business Show 2009 at the Cheel Arena at Clarkson University in Potsdam, NY. While St. Lawrence Chocolates doesn't have their own individual booth, there will be a special "Silver Ticket" at the County Chamber booth for anyone who might be in the area and stop by. Admission to the show is only a $1. The coupon will be good for 1 week from the date of the show.

Similar to the Wonka Golden Ticket, we will have plenty for everyone... so don't feel like there are only 5 out there!

Speaking of Wonka, we are working on a special float for the Potsdam Summer Festival parade to be held July 11 and I'm sure Wilamena Wonka will show up again somewhere this year.

We hope everyone is planning a sweet summer.

New

adkwyvern@yahoo.com (bbloo) — Wed, 13 May 2009 17:37:00 +0000

I had to count today to see how many flavors we are currently carrying. All I knew was that it was over 12. We have 20 flavors in the case! That doesn't include our Truffles and our clusters just our cream/filled chocolates. Wow! Who knew we could even make that many!

Recently, we have added some new flavors and whether or not they will become permanent additions is still to be tested. The real test comes at the holidays when we can hardly keep up with the Standard Twelve flavors we started with back in 2006. Here's what you call the Rookie List.

Dekalb Delight: This is a marshmallow creme filling done in a shell of milk or dark. Ellen and I agree the dark is better but we like dark chocolate. I consider it still in the testing phase as I'm not making them as often as other flavors so I don't know if they are really popular yet. They came about when a customer (from Dekalb Junction) asked if we had a marshmallow chocolate. When I said no, she thought we ought to make one and she'd buy a bunch! She suggested we name it after Dekalb. Well, Ellen and I discussed it and we settled on using the Marshmallow Fluff that you can find in the stores and is popular to make Whoopie Pie filling. We think it tastes great but our customer never returned so far as I know. But at least we have a great chocolate!

Waddington Wintergreen: This dark chocolate is sure to please if you like mints! The filling is our standard cream filling flavored with wintergreen oil. We use a transfer sheet to decorate the top of the candy with little white snowflakes. We had this one last Christmas but thought that the flavor would stand the test of time. I'm not sure if our customers buy this chocolate because it tastes so good or because it just looks so pretty! I had not intended to make this flavor through the summer but I think too many people would miss it. It's still in a holding pattern for now.

The Nobles: This is our newest creation. I was making Massena Mints (dark chocolate flavored with creme de menthe) and had left over chocolate. I was wondering what else to make with it when I spied some peppermint cream filling left. There wasn't enough to do a whole mold of chocolates, just half so I decided to do a Double Mint chocolate. Ellen tasted it and thought they simply had to be added to the case. We had to come up with a name and Ellen came up with the Nobles. EJ Noble was the inventor of the LifeSaver from Governeur for which our Governeur Pep-O-Mints are named. So this seemed like a natural.

Carmel Peanut Clusters: I haven't had much time to dilly dally with our cluster line. We stick mostly to nut clusters and I wanted to try something a bit different. I have had a few customers ask if we have any caramel with nuts. Since nuts and chunky things are so hard to mold, I always have to say no. But when a customer asked if any of the clusters had caramel in them, my brain started spinning. Why not put caramel chunks in the clusters? Or make it a bark? Ellen confirmed my belief that the caramel would not melt in the chocolate but remain a chunk. She also suggested that we use a mold to make a "cluster cup" so that it would fit into a tray. So I have made these as clusters and used the mold to make cluster cups! I have made them in milk chocolate and just today did some in white chocolate for those customers always looking for more white chocolate choices. We'll have to see how they work out. I did not use the caramel that we make as we didn't have any made but future batches will probably be made with our own butter caramel.

Flavor of the Month:
We have introduced our Flavor of the Month program and started it back in February with our White Raspberry Hearts. This month's flavor is Kokomo Corners, a pina colada cream in milk chocolate. We use our Pinapple mold and it looks really cool. But that's only around for a month, then it goes away for a whole year.

So now you're all caught up with what's new at St. Lawrence Chocolates. Stop in a see us soon!

I Only Make them Hollow

adkwyvern@yahoo.com (bbloo) — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 14:41:00 +0000

I wish chocolate Easter Bunnies multiplied the way real bunnies seem to. Alas, I have to make every single one!

We have chocolate Easter bunnies in two sizes and all are hollow. I know that a lot of people like solid chocolate bunnies but there are a couple reasons why we are not making them this year. The first and most important is that we don't have the proper mold equipment to make them solid. We did not purchase bases for the molds we have and therefore cannot make them solid chocolate as there is nothing to hold the chocolate in the mold. For those who are thinking, "it can't be too hard to rig something up", think again. Once these molds are filled with chocolate, even the small one is very heavy and there is no flat surface to the mold. It just doesn't sit well anywhere, even upside down! We've tried them all. So maybe next year, we'll invest in a few bases to see if we can make some solid bunnies.

But another problem with these bunnies is that when they are solid, they are A LOT of chocolate. The smaller of the two weighs in at just over 14 ounces, only a few ounces shy of a pound. The larger would probably be almost twice that! So the retail price of a solid bunny would be rather high. I think we could sell them but I hope people understand that these aren't the chocolate bunnies you can get at any major retail store. So they are worth the money!

So besides not having the proper equipment and the cost of making these solid bunnies, there is the logistics of having them come out looking GOOD. Chocolate can be temperamental when you try to combine them at different temperatures. By the time you get the mold coated without air bubbles, it's just too cold to combine with the chocolate you add to the middle. This causes streaking and bloom. It whacks the chocolate out of it's proper temper and makes it stick to the mold rather than releasing cleanly. Then, I've got bupkus for all the time I put into this thing.

One of my main reasons for not "liking" solid bunnies is that they are so HARD! Good chocolate is hard, crisp, and shiny. Solid pieces of chocolate that are thick can be hard on your teeth! That's mostly why chocolate should be allowed to melt slightly on your tongue rather than be chewed. A chocolate bunny is hard to cut through and ends up more like grated chocolate than anything. But that is more of a personal preference of mine and I'm sure that there are plenty of people who don't mind cutting up that bunny however they must.

I'm not saying I'll never make solid chocolate bunnies! In time and with practice, I'm sure I will get the hang of making them come out properly. With the investment into the proper molds, we can try them out for next year. I suppose I can overcome my fear of the super hard chocolate! But for this year and for now, I'm making HOLLOW Easter Bunnies. They come in milk, dark, and white in two sizes. The smaller of the two is $5.25 and the larger is $8.25. The smaller stands 6.5 inches and the larger is 8.5 inches tall. They vary slightly in weight.

We have other wonderful offerings for Easter as well. Solid Easter Crosses in all the chocolates. I'm trying to paint the flowers on some of them but it all depends on what I have available for time. I have the ever-popular "buck" bunnies, as I call them. They are small and flat with a colored bow tie. Called "buck" because they are priced at 1.00. We have two different chocolate pops with bunny heads and our spring flower pops are starting to blossom. (You can't say "bloom" to a chocolatier!) While I can't speak for Ellen (owner and chocolatier), she has been saying she's going to make some Easter marshmallows. If you haven't tried our homemade marshmallows, you don't know what you're missing. (I'm hoping that we can soon substitute them in our Warmers' Smore Pops! Yummy!)

Our decadent Truffle Eggs are also back. We try to do these 1/2 pound eggs to order but we try to keep some in the shop during the week of Easter. Truffle filling is perishable and best when fresh so we don't like to make them too far in advance. I'll be kicking production up around the first days of April. We make several flavors and the Coconut one seems to be most popular followed by our Peanut Butter. I'm partial to the Milk truffle egg and our white chocolate fans swear by our White Raspberry Egg. I also make a Dark Truffle egg for our dark chocolate lovers.
So stop by the shop or give us a call, if you need anything for Easter. We can ship via Priority Mail but we don't deliver. Hop on in for a bit of chocolate!

We put the "sweet" in Sweetheart

adkwyvern@yahoo.com (bbloo) — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 23:55:00 +0000

Valentine's Day is fast approaching and at the Shop, we are decked out with hearts from the ceiling! Of course, we also are getting out and ordering more heart shaped boxes for our fabulous chocolates. What's Valentine's Day without a box of chocolates?

So what's new? Take a gander.

We still have some square boxes that have a Heart shaped window that hold either 16 or 32 pieces of chocolate. We've always had these boxes but we're phasing them out this year to go with only heart-shaped boxes next year. So these will be limited in supply. They are the same size as our Christmas boxes but have a different cover. For a mix of creams and clusters, a 16 pc box will sell for 8.75 and a 32 pc box will sell for 17.25.

Our large Heart shaped boxes hold 29 pieces with a tray. The tray has varying size slots so it's gonna be tough to custom make these out of the case. We are hoping to use these as our pre-packaged boxes so you get a good assortment of our flavors. These will run for 20.00 unless the box gets filled with truffles. A truffle heart will run for 34.00 and these can be picked from the case because the truffles don't fit in the tray anyway!

We have a small heart box that we ordered by mistake that will hold 6 truffles for our usual price of 6.00. Our Standard 12 and 24 pc boxes will have a special Valentine's cover and they can be packed with our Standard Assortment or custom made from the display case. Our usual prices will apply to these.

Ellen came up with an idea to do a Snack Box...sort of a His and Hers kind of thing for those who would rather have snack type sweets than a box of chocolates. It will contain a 4 pc Ori-Oh, a 2 pack pretzel, a bag of Cashews or Almonds, a Heart shaped Chocolate pop, and possibly some homemade Carmel Corn. Ellen has been experimenting with a recipe for Carmel-covered popcorn but I'm not sure we've perfected it. It tastes really good but it stays sticky rather than hardening like Cracker Jack. So after we package it, it just turns into a big mass of sticky popcorn. Ellen is going to keep experimenting and see if she can tweak the recipe so that it will harden better and have a better shelf life. So for right now, I can only take orders for the Snack Boxes. If we can't get the popcorn to work, we may substitute Jelly Bellys in the box. At the current time, we are selling them for 12.00.

So what's so special?
In February, we are hoping to start our Flavor of the Month. The Feature Flavor will change from month to month and only be available for that month. We will pre-package some boxes with only the Feature Flavor and offer a bit of a discount on the price. The Flavor will also be available in our case for the month. I hope to keep the Feature Flavor in good stock but that's just well wishes if it's a popular flavor.

February's Flavor is our Raspberry cream in white chocolate. It will be molded in our Heart shaped mold. This flavor was very popular last year and adds an extra white chocolate piece to our case. The Heart will have a splash of cocoa butter color on it as well. A very romantic piece of chocolate for your Sweetheart!

We also have our Heart shaped chocolate pops; some colored with a edible lustre spray and some foil wrapped in pink and red. I have pulled out the Rose mold as well and have those pops available in milk and dark. Our Heart shaped mold that will be used with our Flavor of the Month is currently being used to produce solid milk and dark morsels for those who don't like anything in their chocolate. These are foil wrapped and look wonderful in a candy dish or clear vase.

I'm also making a special bark for Valentine's Day called Sweetheart Bark. It's white chocolate with macadamia nuts and chunks of our 64% dark chocolate. Last year I colored it pink but this year, I've decided to drop the coloring and just leave it white.

Lastly, I've thrown together a Valentine's mix of Jelly Bellys. We've bagged them in clear bags with a red bow and they make a nice addition to any box of chocolates or gift basket. They contain Very Cherry, Bubble Gum, and Toasted Marshmallow flavors.

We're trying our best to keep in stock right up to Valentine's Day but the best selection will be early. So tell your Sweetheart not to procrastinate this year! Our chocolates are good for 3 months and our truffles are good for 3 weeks. Solid chocolate lasts for a year! The hardest part about buying early is trying to keep from eating it!

Happy Thanksgiving

noreply@blogger.com (NezzysMom) — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 11:59:00 +0000

We have so much to be thankful for this year. We are still open and we are still making people happy with our chocolate! We have some wonderful loyal customers, and new ones finding us every day.
We hired our temp help for the season. Tina was with us last year and she has much to be thankful for after battling breast cancer this year. Angela and Ellen are both thankful for the additional two hands in the shop, which is taking on a nice holiday glow.
What's New? Well, we added a couple new flavors:
1. Ranger Truffles. Named for the Wanakena Ranger School near Cranberry Lake, this is a cranberry truffle with white chocolate encased in dark.
2. Waddington Wintergreen. This is wintergreen cream in dark chocolate. It has a pretty white snowflake pattern on the top.
3. Mendiants. These area a French-style chocolate. A patty of milk chocolate with candied fruit nestled on top. They are very eye-catching, and taste way better than fruit cake. So eat your fruits.

I plan to try my hand at homemade marshmallows this weekend. Had to find a recipe without raw egg whites... and did. Should be fun!

For the first year, we have decided to stay open for Black Friday!!! We are even having a secret sale... well not so secret. You pick a chocolate bell from the Christmas stocking... the color foil indicates your discount at the register, 10, 15, 25 or 50 percent off. And you get to keep the bell.

And on the first weekend in December, we are celebrating our 2nd Anniversary. If you are in the area, stop in for a piece of cake (chocolate of course) and help us celebrate. We are also having a few specials that weekend as well as it is Potsdam's Super Holiday Shopping Weekend. Hope to see you all this holiday season.

Featured on Food Blog

noreply@blogger.com (NezzysMom) — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 21:59:00 +0000

Hi All...
Realize it has been awhile. Angela has given me a new crash course in blogging, so I will endeavor to post a little more often.

The latest scoop is that St. Lawrence Chocolates was featured on a great food blog. We've added the link at the right... for Grumpy Honeybunch. She is giving away a box of St. Lawrence Chocolate Truffles to a random person she will select from anyone leaving a comment about her blog... so check it out. She has a lot of great recipes on there as well.

We made our annual trek to the Philadelphia Candy Show, which is now conveniently held in Atlantic City instead of Philly. Had a great time and ordered some cool stuff for the holidays, including blood orange and pomegranate cordials. They taste great together and we will package in a clear cube box. These go great with Win's Brew (java jazz and creme brulee) cordials, and the New York Espresso mix chocolate covered espresso beans... And of course the will all make great stocking stuffers.

For Holloween, we currently have hollow skull heads in clear cube boxes, as well as skull pops and jack-o-lantern pops. We have colored leaves in sold shapes, with cocoa butter spray...very shiny. And of course a cornucopia basket filled with fall colors and LOTS-O'-CHOCOLATE.

Thanks for checking us out... and check back soon. Make sure to take our poll on the right... what's your favorite chocolate.

New Flavors for Fall

adkwyvern@yahoo.com (bbloo) — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 20:49:00 +0000

So September snuck right up on me! Who said the summer was gonna be slow?
So here's the update for our newest products and the return of some Fall Favorites.

NEW FLAVORS
We have added some new flavors to the case recently and they will probably be available right through to Christmas. Our new Lisbon Lime is a dark chocolate lime flavored ganache coated with our X Dark (70%). It is molded in the same square as the Sugar Shack with a different transfer sheet. If you're a lover of dark chocolate, this is a dream.

We also now offer our Cornwall Turtles in the display case to be added to a custom box! These were only available in a box of 8 but we've added them to the case as another showcase of our wonderful butter caramel. The Cornwall Turtle consists of our homemade butter caramel with chopped walnuts rolled into it then dipped in milk chocolate. They are small, rich and they melt in your mouth! A perfect addition with the cooler weather on the way!

Ellen has also added a caramel made with that energy drink that "gives you wings". Our new Madrid Bull Caramel will certainly be a hit. Do you get it? Mad-red...madrid bull? Fun and funky for our expanding college crowd!

For clusters, we added the X Dark Almond clusters and Red Gunner Bites. The Red Gunner Bites are just like the bark. Red Gunner is the name of a friend's chocolate lab who just loves to eat pretzels. So Red Gunner Bark is a slab of milk chocolate with crushed pretzels in it. Now Red Gunner Bites are a cluster available in our display case. Chunky pretzels are globbed with milk or dark chocolate. So how do you eat your pretzels? Bark or Bite?

I've also experimented with Chunky Monkeys. We have a good sized Monkey mold that doesn't seem to be too popular. So I took a bunch of leftover chunks from various barks (those that don't include dried fruits anyway) and mixed them into a batch of milk chocolate. I, then, molded this mixture with the Monkey mold we have. Thus, we now have Chunky Monkeys. This is a good way to us to recycle those little bits that break apart when we cut up our other barks without having to throw it away. If I ate all those little bits, I wouldn't fit through the kitchen door! Talk about Chunky! So the chunks include a lot of different things from nuts to oreos to pretzels! Every bite is different.

RETURNING FAVORITES
Autumn and Thanksgiving signals the return of a popular Truffle: The Pumpkin Truffle. Our fresh pumpkin ganache is the filling for a white chocolate shell. We have customers that have been waiting patiently all summer for it. We'll start making this flavor in Early October if not sooner!

Our Halloween Goblin Eyes will make a return. I called them Krispie Eyes last year but figure I'll upgrade the name since they were very popular. Goblin Eyes are a sphere of rice krispie marshmallow treat dunked in white chocolate then painted with cocoa butter to look like an eye ball. They are a fun touch to a custom box! Imagine your friend opening the box of chocolates you picked out for them to see an eyeball staring back at them! I'll start these in early October as well and they will disappear after Halloween.

Our chocolate pops will now take on various shapes for the Autumn holidays. We will have our pumpkin/jack o'lanterns wrapped in orange foil. Our Skull pops will be ready to go soon and various little solid shapes of Halloween figures like ghosts and cats and tombstones. Our foil wrapped Autumn Leaves will be bagged with a ribbon to make great favor bags for a dinner party or to scatter around on a platter. They look so festive and taste even better! Let's not forget our wonderful 3-D Skulls as well. These hollow chocolate skulls look too real to eat! Sorry, these hollow skulls just can't be shipped as they are too fragile.

WORKS IN PROGRESS
I'm going to list some new flavors we are thinking of adding. They may be only seasonal or they may be permanent. We haven't decided yet.

Hopefully, for Autumn we will have figured out a chocolate chip cookie dough flavor. I was originally thinking of putting an actual cookie dough together and adding it to our Creams and Clusters. But Ellen suggested making it a truffle that tasted of brown sugar, vanilla, and butter with flecks of dark chocolate. I'm not so certain of the truffle. Our fondant fillings may be more of the base with which to work since it is based in sugar. Using brown sugar instead of white and adding a vanilla and butter flavor may make the right taste for a "cookie dough". I would really like to add this flavor to the line but I'm not sure if we will have the time to "make it work" before our Holiday Rush begins.

Wanakena Rangers have been put to the back burner since we opened. This chocolate was one of Ellen's signature chocolates at the onset but we never had a mold to make them in and never got around to buying new. Now that we have a couple molds that are versatile, it may finally be time to break out this unique flavor. This milk or dark chocolate (we haven't decided which!) will be filled with a cranberry/orange fondant. Ellen uses cranberry juice instead of water to make the fondant and adds finely chopped dried cranberries to it. A splash of orange flavor takes away some of the tart flavor and mellows it out a touch. They are named for the Forest Ranger School in Wanakena which is located out toward Cranberry Lake in St. Lawrence County. These pieces will probably use the Raquette Raspberry mold with different coloring, green perhaps to symbolize the forest that the Rangers preserve.

Our other new flavor in development will be introduced for the Holiday season this year, around early November. We will again use the Sugar Shack mold but with a snowflake design transfer sheet. The white snowflakes will show up wonderfully against our dark chocolate shell. We shall fill them with Wintergreen filling and they shall be called Waddington Wintergreen. And it will be good!

Also joining our Bark line-up for Christmas will be the Peppermint Bark. We use white chocolate and throw in crushed candy canes for a silky holiday treat.

One other flavor I'm considering is along these Peppermint Bark lines. I'd like to use the Bear Paw mold for a piece of white chocolate that is sprinkled with crushed mint candy, maybe spearmint. I'd love to call them Polar Bears but am not certain if the candy would mold well. I suppose I'd have to crush the hard candies to a very fine consistency and if crushed so well, would they even be noticeable! Of course we do have a Bear Pop mold that might work just as well. This idea needs more development.

We have new ideas and flavors to try out all the time. We still make our Wine Truffles but they are hit and miss in the display case. We don't make them consistently but once in awhile you can find the PJ's (merlot) and the Brandybrook Blueberry Truffles. Our Wine truffles are made with Rivermyst Wine, a local winery located near Ogdensburg. All are done in dark chocolate as milk chocolate makes a terrible pairing with wine unless the wine is a sweet dessert wine. But if anyone has a request for these truffles (which we make by special order for Rivermyst), we can whip up a batch in no time! Or you can try your luck at the Winery itself which sells them in 6 piece boxes. Then, you can pick up the matching Wine as well!

I could go on and on about all our Christmas plans but that makes for another later posting!
Here's to cooler weather, back to school, and the changing of the seasons!

The Unofficial Start to Summer

noreply@blogger.com (NezzysMom) — Sat, 24 May 2008 19:35:00 +0000

Yup, it's here...the unofficial start to summer, Memorial Day weekend. While we are taking a couple of days off, and the shop will be closed Monday 26th, as well as June 2-3. We have some great party products in the shop including the very popular Warmer S'more Pops (two marshmellows on a stick, dipped in milk chocolate and rolled in graham cracker crumbs.) It tastes like the delicious fire-side treat, but with out the gooey mess...just delicious.

We also have bagged solids in flower shapes, as well as flower pops... great for a backyard picnic.

We are going to do a special for Potsdam Summer Festival. Chocolate dipped strawberries. Dunked fresh each day, (if we can get some nice berries). We did a trial run on a recent Saturday and the customers said they were absolutely amazing. They have a very short shelf life, so we have to do a limited time run on these. Be sure to check in the shop on July 10-12 during the festival.

And just in case you are counting, we now have 12 flavors of truffles!! Love those merlot, and Bailey's Irish cream ones.

Hope everyone has a wonderful summer, and remember we are worth the trip and the price of gas.

Cinco de Maio

noreply@blogger.com (NezzysMom) — Sun, 04 May 2008 16:03:00 +0000

It's hard to believe it's May already. The shop has been bustling with activity. Wedding orders here, rehearsal dinner orders there. Valentine's Day in February was very busy, as was the early Easter in March. We have just caught our breath and now we are gearing up for a big Food and Wine Show in Clayton, NY.

The Great New York State Food and Wine Show is held June 20-22 at the Clayton Recreation Park. Wineries, cheese makers and foodies from all over check this one out. Great Finger Lakes wines, local 1000 Islands wineries are all on had with tastings and sales. We checked it out last year and decided we wanted to share St. Lawrence Chocolates with everyone there as well.

We are currently using wines from River Myst Winery in Ogdensburg, NY to make a few special truffles for them including: Black Lake Berry Wine Truffles, Barnhardt Black Cherry, and Red Mills Red Merlot Truffles. These all have a very rich flavor with the hint of their wine.

We are also experimenting with some special summer flavors: key lime, margarita, and iced tea. If you're in the area check in the shop to see what's new.

We are also waiting for local strawberry season to offer chocolate dipped strawberries. We've had a lot of requests, and want to do offer them when local berries are ready and plentiful.

Do you have an idea for a flavor? Drop us an email to ellen@stlawrencechocolates.com.

Another New Year

adkwyvern@yahoo.com (bbloo) — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 23:10:00 +0000

So here I am sitting at the Chocolate Shop computer at 6:15 on a Friday Night. Ellen has been out of town for a few days so I'm slacking off!

Actually, I've been working hard to get some orders done this week and add some Valentine decor to the shop. After Christmas, we were scant on a few things so now we are back in stock on almost everything. Our chocolate covered cherries will have to wait as our distributor didn't have any when we wanted them. We don't dunk the cherries, we order them. They are really just too labor intensive to make any money on.

It's January and I've already had my first request for chocolate covered strawberries. I suppose it's a popular thing for Valentine's Day, too. I'm pretty sure we could dunk them but not so sure they'd be profitable. It would be a definite special order item provided I can get the strawberries. I have no super secret source for produce like strawberries, bananas, apples...all that stuff comes from the P&C grocery store up the street. If they haven't got it, I don't got it.

But what I do have is some Valentine's Pops. Hearts shapes in dark and milk, some painted with red cocoa butter. The white chocolate ones are tinted pink (also with red cocoa butter). We'll see if people like them. They don't have any flavoring added; its just white chocolate but the color is somewhere between bubble gum and mauve. They look better than they sound!

I've made some large solid hearts as well and figured I'd write "Love" on them with a contrasting color of chocolate. They worked out okay. Except that I had a customer want one customized to say "Thank you"...ummm, I don't know if that will fit on there...but as long as I have some time, I might be able to customize them. It would be a special order with plenty of advance notice. Nothing like trying to spell something right while the chocolate becomes a big lump in the piping bottle!

Ellen ordered some small heart shaped boxes for the holiday. So I'm making lots of filled cremes to go in them. Our special flavor for Valentines is already a hit among white chocolate lovers. I'm making a heart shaped raspberry creme in white chocolate. As a finishing touch, the heart has a swipe of red cocoa butter on the top. It's the same filling as our new Raquette Raspberry that is done in dark chocolate. We also added solid hearts, in milk and dark, to the case foil wrapped in pink and red respectively.

We have our Valentine Jelly Bellies. The 10 and 20 flavor boxes have a pretty little sleeve on them. We also have something new. We have Sunkist Fruit Gems also made by Jelly Belly. They are like a smooshed gum drop or a round fruit slice. They come in a bag and we sell them for $5.25. If you like gumdrops, these are right up your alley!

Of course, I'm trying to push the Valentines boxes. We have a 16 pc box(red square with cut-out heart) for $8.50, and a 32 pc box for $16.95. Not sure what the little heart boxes will sell for yet as they are new this year. We also have our little 6 pc pink boxes that don't take a tray but hold 6 candy cups with chocolate. Those are the same as our regular 6 pc boxes at $3.95.

I also found from last year these little gold heart boxes. They will hold one piece of chocolate and the truffles are too big to fit! But a nice red or pink wrapped solid heart looks really cool in one of them. They are only a buck...add 50 cents for the chocolate...and it's a nice little thing to put in someone's Valentine's basket. These gold heart boxes can easily be reused for just about any special occasion!

That's Valentine's Day!

Fright Night

noreply@blogger.com (NezzysMom) — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 15:28:00 +0000

Thank you to the hundreds of families that stopped by the shop on Oct. 25 as part of Fright Night in Potsdam. The line was out the door and down the street solid from 5:30 until 7:50, when we got a break. It was great to see some familiar faces, as well as so many who said "I've never been in here before and I will definitely be back."

Angela dressed as a pirate assisted the youth to caste line over the Jolly Roger flag to fish for a treat. Some got Jelly Belly Jelly Beans, others a chocolate fish. Angela even had some of her gold hooked. If a youth received the black spot card, they got to chose a special combo treat from Pirate Angela's Treasure Chest.

We have one new limited edition flavor in the case...milk coconut truffle. Kind of an oops, but also some people had been looking for them as well. We will be trying out the pumpkin truffle recipe this weekend as well. Pumpkin pie puree with white chocolate in a white chocolate shell.

Also recently we participated in the St. Lawrence County Chamber's Business-to-Business and Consumer Expo. Not a lot of traffic, but some good corporate connections. We're donating a basked to the Chamber's silent auction this week, and will start putting the push on people to think about their holiday orders. We don't want anyone to be disappointed.

Well the break is over...hope everyone has a fabulous Halloween.

Summer Flew By

noreply@blogger.com (NezzysMom) — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 19:48:00 +0000

I can't believe we are in October already and I haven't written a thing since July 4. Well we are definitely gearing up for Halloween. Chocolate skulls, skull and pumpkin pops, black and orange cats, gooey ghouls, carmel filled chocolate apples, crispy eyes (rice crispy treats covered in white chocolate and painted like an eye), Laura's Treats (rice crispy treats on a stick, dunked in milk chocolate and large enough for two people).

And I have to rave about the raspberry dark truffles, the new peanut butter cups, and coming very soon, Raquette Raspberry cremes.

Fright Night in Potsdam is October 25. Many of the merchants offer special activities for the children, trick or treating, and maybe a sale or two for mom and dad. We are doing Pirate Fishing. Toss the line over the Pirate Flag and see what you hook. AARRRgggg maybe some pirate gold!!!

We will also be doing the Business Expo in the Massena, NY mall and showing off our holiday packaging and taking orders for the holidays. Help us meet all your gift giving, but letting us know early.

More soon. Thanks for checking back with us.

Happy Fourth of July

noreply@blogger.com (NezzysMom) — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 17:36:00 +0000

We hope everyone is having a great July 4. We closed the shop for the day, however, I had to catch up on filings. The summer season has been busier than expected. So we are very pleased to see that people still want to eat their St. Lawrence Chocolates in the summer as well as ice cream.

Potsdam Summer Festival is next weekend, July 12-15. We are looking forward to a busy week, and I've even taken a couple days off to help in the shop. We have a special of a free 2 pack pretzel with $5 purchase. We will also have Jelly Belly samples, and some in store sales on Popcorn Suite popcorn.

And don't forget the Warmer S'more Pops and our new River Bars.

Well back to the kitchen. More later.

Summer is here, unofficially

noreply@blogger.com (NezzysMom) — Wed, 30 May 2007 01:04:00 +0000

Well, the colleges have seen off all the students for the summer, and with the last graduation on May 21, the 22nd was one of the slowest days in the shop. We know that the summer is generally a slow season for the chocolate industry, but we had to laugh.

So we are now gearing up for the tourists, the campers and the welcome home parties. Not to mention the high school graduations, weddings and summer get-togethers. The new Warmer S'more pops are just amazing. The great taste of the cook out favorite without all the mess. We are going to advertise them big for the Potsdam Summer Festival, July 12-14.

We are looking forward to some fall weddings, as well as supplying the colleges with chocolate, and not to mention a the 1844 House. We celebrated our 14th Wedding Anniversary with dinner there. Wow...we found it absolutely amazing. Brian and Jenny Walker have been open for about a year, and do an absolutely fablous job. Who would have thought that I would like pan seared tuna, or fiddle head ferns. They contacted us about doing some special chocolates for the end of meal offering. We are looking forward to creating something special to complement such a special meal.

Our other new creation for the summer is the addition of our 7th new truffle flavor....The Purple Cow. It is a grape flavored truffle in white chocolate with a purple swirl on top. At first I wasn't sure if it was grape enough...a few taste testers said it was really good. So we keep it as a truffle rather than turning it into a cream flavor. Why a "purple cow"? Two reasons: 1. a purple cow is a drink dad made for me as kid...grape soda with a scoop of vanilla ice cream...a grape float. 2. I used to recite the little poem over and over...
"I've never seen a purple cow
And I never hope to see one;
But I would rather see one that to be one."
And one summer day, my mother found a swizzle stick for my extensive collection with a purple cow head on the top.
And just recently a friend gave me a birthday card...she found a graphic from an old Nesbitt soda ad for with recipe for a "purple cow". She loves cows, and was looking for Nesbitt soda items for me....Just amazing.

So if you are in Potsdam, stop in and check out the new flavors: KaramelRoos (caramel in milk or dark); purple cows, Hop'kickin'ton bark (it does have a kick of cayenne and black pepper); Winthrop White (made by Tom during my 40th surprise birthday party that he completely missed), Waddington Wasbi pea clusters, and the Warmer S'more pops.

ChocoHoliday

adkwyvern@yahoo.com (bbloo) — Sun, 29 Apr 2007 17:51:00 +0000

I've never really noticed this before...but chocolate cycles with the holidays. And it seems any old holiday will do. I mean, I never would have predicted that Office Assistants Day would be a crazy week in the shop for gift baskets and chocolates. Every boss in Potsdam wanted a box of chocolates for their office! I'm not complaining, mind you, but I just never foresaw that.

But businesses can't survive on holiday sales alone. You can't just do good business at Christmas and expect to be open in July. So all these little holidays are important to a healthy chocolate business. I mean, think of all the little holidays there are. Not just Office Assistants Day...what about Talk Like a Pirate Day, or Boss's Day, or Speak Pig Latin Day, or Opening Day, or Closing Day, or Run Around the Park Naked Day...okay, so I made some of those up...

My point is that every day should be a chocoholiday. Every day, some one is born: That's a birthday! Doesn't every day deserve to be celebrated...and celebrations demand chocolate! Why should people only treat themselves on Federal Holidays?

Don't Give Up Chocolate

noreply@blogger.com (NezzysMom) — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 11:58:00 +0000

As youngsters, our father would suggest that in observance of Lent, we give up chocolate. And most often we would. We also knew that at Easter, we would get a nice reward of a great Easter egg hunt in the back yard, plus lots of chocolate bunnies and eggs.

Now that we are owners of a chocolate shop, which our father enjoys right along with us, he proudly announced in his Church that while the season of Lent was coming, he suggested that no one give up chocolate. He suggested giving up bread or potatoes. Way to go Dad!!!

We have some great plans for Easter... Another childhood memory was of a chocolate filled egg that was sold at an Easter bazaar in Potsdam. The older woman who sold the eggs could personalize them by writing your name in frosting on the top. The egg when cut into was filled with a rich, dense, creamy filling. A slice in a sitting was enough.

St. Lawrence Chocolates is adopting the tradition. We will have milk chocolate eggs, filled with a milk chocolate truffle; white filled with a raspberry flavor; milk with peanut butter; and dark with coconut. Although we will not be able to personalize, we will had some decroative icing flowers to the eggs. (Get your orders in now)

We of course will have traditional chocolate bunnies, foil wrapped eggs (half eggs), and some chocolate pops.

So until Easter, have a great St. Patrick's Day (hopefully you didn't give up beer). Maybe next year we will have perfected the stout truffle.

Be My Valentine

adkwyvern@yahoo.com (bbloo) — Sun, 21 Jan 2007 18:53:00 +0000

With things calmed down after Christmas, it was nice to actually be able to keep the display case full and have some backstock for making boxes. But now the push of Valentine's Day is approaching and I'm back to my old cycle of making those standard 12 flavors in quantity. But it now seems much less hectic, since I have some stock piled already. This time I can afford to do three molds of a flavor...before I was only doing a couple since I was trying to get all 12 flavors done in a day! Now, I can concentrate my efforts on only a few flavors per day.

We've got some great little things for Valentine's Day in the shop. I'm making chocolate pops, heart shaped. They are pretty popular. One is a plain heart on a 6 inch stick that is foil wrapped. Another is on a 4 inch stick but is a little heavier and has small hearts indented into the chocolate. I then try to paint these little hearts with the pink quartz cocoa butter we have. They look very classic. Pink seems to be the best color to paint as the white is too dull and the red is too dark (on white chocolate it looked like I accidentally cut my finger open...). Ellen also got a few molds with double hearts that I haven't yet tried but will get to this week probably as I'm already bored with the simple foil wrapped heart pops even though I have another million to do! :)

We're also making simple solid chocolates in heart shapes. They are similiar to our jingle bells that we made at Christmas (for the lucky few who actually saw them before they flew out the door!) They are a solid peice of chocolate, foil wrapped in red, pink, silver, and gold foils. We bag them up in a Valentine's Day bag and sell them. I have made them in milk, dark, white, and have made a few peanut butter filled ones. These solids will also make up the 4 center peices in our heart boxes.

The heart boxes are a 16 peice square box. The lid is red with a cut out heart in the center with plastic see-through. We have our standard 12 flavors around the outside and in the 4 center spots we have either the solids mentioned above or we place 4 truffles for extra charge. They are really nice looking boxes and I'm sure they'll sell like hot cakes.

At the chocolate show, Ellen and I purchased some heart shaped boxes...a little thicker and heavier than simple cardboard, they are sturdy and hold a pound of chocolate. It's hard to describe what they look like but they are definately a step up from that Russell Stover heart shaped box you see in every department store. We don't have a lot of them but they will also retail for a higher price due to the box.

Naturally, we also have smaller boxes. One is heart shaped, red-felted, and says "Happy Valentine's Day" in gold lettering on it. And then, we have a small pink box with hearts all over it for just a few peices of chocolate. These pink boxes will house our Valentine's Mix, two raspberry jells, two coconuts, and two Burg Berries.

And of course, what would Valentine's Day be without sprinkled oreos and chocolate covered pretzels! We've got them with the red, pink, and white heart sprinkles to make them festive for any kind of gift basket. We are making gift baskets for whatever budget, too. Cut-off date for special orders is Feb 5th!

Have a happy Valentine's Day!

The New Year

noreply@blogger.com (NezzysMom) — Fri, 05 Jan 2007 00:36:00 +0000

We knew things would slow down...way down. With only a few customers a day, it has allowed us time to really restock. Angela has been going great guns to get new product out as well as the favorites. We know have Power Rods (yellow and red sprinkles) and Aluminum Rods (silver cocoa butter ends) in the store. Snowy Roads Bark (cookies and cream) and our newly named Chocolate covered Oreo Cookies....the Ori-OHs.

Our good friend Jon Ori, who lives in Massena, is quite the chocolate lover. His wife, and marketing specialist, bought some of our chocolate covered cookies for her husband for Christmas. He loved them.... as she told me the story, it clicked. We should call them the Oris, she suggested adding the OH to the end as the play on words....voi la. They come in milk and dark covered.

We also offered chocolate for the newspapers promo for the first baby born in the new year. The ad rep needs to pick up the chocolate. Pretzels with pink and blue bears, Ori-OHs, and a 12 piece assorted.

We are headed to Atlantic City on Januyar 6-8. It is the Philiadelphia Candy Show (yes, we know it is a different state. They moved it for more excitment. We have had a great time in the past, learn a lot in the workshops, and Tom has fun at the Casinos. (Have to reward him somehow for doing all the driving.) Angela is making the trip with us, as Marylee will watch the shop and the Nezzy.

So with Valentine's Day only 21 days away...have you been thinking about a sweet gift for the sweetie. We have some cool 15 piece square boxes with a cut-out heart on the front, as well as some small, pink boxes for a little taste. We will also be looking for some cool stuff at the show. We also hope to have a new line of nuts in the shop. A local woman in Colton operates her own business, Nut Shop International. They are very yummy; a nice addition to our shop.

Quiet Sunday Morning

adkwyvern@yahoo.com (bbloo) — Sun, 17 Dec 2006 15:36:00 +0000

It's a quiet Sunday morning here at the Chocolate Shop...that's perhaps because we're not open yet. I came in early to start tempering the dark chocolate that I will need to make Saints, Golden Knights, White Caps, Northstars, and Dark Hazelnut Truffles. I'd make Massena Mints but we don't have enough Creme de Menthe to make a batch. I'm trying to get enough creams done to make the display case look respectable as well as do up 15 boxes of 24 candies for an order due this week. Another 8 single layer boxes is also due...so a little backup supply is called for. But for now, all that's happening is the hum of the tempering machine as I wait for that familiar beep that tells me to take out the seed chocolate.

Despite being very busy making chocolate, I do like this new job and still like chocolate. Though my cravings for M&M's and Hershey's Kisses have definately decreased, I still like to sample the occassional mishap out of the mold. The molded creams are beginning to wear on me...simply becoming routine but the bark, pretzels, and oreos still are fun to make.

The hardest cream to make is the Bear Paw. It is a deep mold so it takes a lot of chocolate to cover it well. Then you have to add two fillings; a strawberry jell and peanut butter fondant. The strawberry jell is sticky and only cotton gloves keeps it from sticking to everything it touches. Our new recipe has greatly improved the work involved in this aspect of making it. The peanut butter fondant, if not used within a few days of creation, becomes very dry and crumbly so is very hard to put into the mold as one piece. This causes little bits of peanut butter to infuse with the bottom layer of chocolate that is used to seal the filling. But the flavor is very popular and many people have commented that it is their favorite.

The easiest to make is, yes, the Massena Mint. This is just a little piece of dark chocolate with creme de menthe flavoring added to it while it's warm. It's a solid piece of chocolate with no filling and the mold used is shallow and not very large. It is by far the fastest thing to make in the case...when we have the flavoring...

My favorite to make? That has to be one of the truffles. Though we have not been making these consistently yet, the great use of colored cocoa butter in the mold makes them one of the prettiest things in the case (next to the sugar shacks). Colored cocoa butter is swirled into the mold before the chocolate is added and when the chocolate cools, the swirl sticks to the top of the candy. It's hard to describe. The fillings are a little hard to work with but the finished product is so pretty, it's just satisfying to see it all done. Maybe, I'll just hoard these little gems and not sell them, they're so cute.

Well, more later...on another quiet morning, no doubt. I have to go as the tempering is calling for me to make up those dark flavors. And my truffle mold is ready to be filled.

The Buzz of Christmas

noreply@blogger.com (NezzysMom) — Thu, 14 Dec 2006 12:58:00 +0000

We had our ribbon cutting ceremony on Dec. 8... were open for a few hours after that, and then Saturday hit. By 7 p.m., we were pretty much cleaned out of product that we made. It was great to see so many people who wanted our product, not to mention the people who came in and thought we'd been in Potsdam forever, and they just didn't know we were here.

We have been working until almost midnight each night to restock for the next day. We realize that we are still working off the Buzz of opening. That coupled with the fact that so many want to give Chocolate as gifts...we are having a great opening. On the downside, we don't want to disappoint anyone by not having enough product.

We've had quite a few large orders. Again just trying to keep up is fun and exciting. Have no idea when I will do my Christmas shopping, and I think I will be sending out New Year's Cards instead of Christmas ones.

There are just so many great ideas that we have and will start to implement for the new year. Hope everyone has a joyous Christmas.