Another New Year

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!