We put the "sweet" in Sweetheart

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!