Holiday Chocolate Making

Well, it's that crazy time of year when people order today, and need it tomorrow.
What makes it bad for us is not freezing our holiday chocolates in July. Yes, most chocolatiers  make chocolates ahead for busy times of year, and they freeze them. We don't do that because we believe that chocolates taste best when you don't freeze, or make them too early. Regular chocolate (just plain) have an 18 month shelf-life, but chocolate can pick-up flavors, and they can also taste old in our opinion. 
Our other downfall is that we make and package everything by hand, which takes time.
 I love the type of chocolate equipment that has a chocolate waterfall. There's a conveyor belt that you put items on and it runs the items through the chocolate curtain. We don't have that, so you do get more chocolate on your chocolate covered cookies. The other equipment has blowers that blow extra chocolate off, and the chocolate is thinned so it can make the chocolate curtain.
Our customers think we make some of the best two pound boxes of chocolates around with: toffee, fudge, truffles, cranberry-almond bark, rocky road clusters, peanut butter cups,caramel squares, mint squares and peppermint bark, and chocolate covered cookies.

I'm thinking of celebrating Thanksgiving and Christmas in the summer next year when chocolate sales are slower.

The Start

"Drakes' Chocolate"

Hi! I've decided to start a blog because, in the world of business today, everyone needs a blog. This is a terrible thing for a person to hear when they hate writing. However, I understand that I'm just supposed to be myself and write stuff to those of you who might like to read my blog.
As a chocolatier and the owner of a small business, I might face a few things that others don't in their normal day. I worry about the weather in that it's not too hot, and whether I have enough chocolate. During the summer, we were going through 600lbs of chocolate per month. That always seemed like a lot to me until I accidentally got someone's invoice for a whole truck-load of chocolate.

I have 3 part-time helpers and my son (and business partner), who help me with all the fun (and we do have fun). How can you not have fun when you get to eat all the chocolate mistakes? We are a happy crew here at Drakes Glen Creations.