Happy Holidays from Hedonist! If you haven’t been to the kitchen this holiday season, stop by—if just to check out our Christmas tree made of blue lights above the gate down the alley. I know… sure that’s what WE say, but even Santa’ll tell you: as holiday spirit goes, visiting Hedonist is practically visiting like the North Pole. We got spirit.

But enough about us, let’s talk about me. I had a pretty good day in the chocolate kitchen. My chocolate making was good, in fact, I’d say it was great, except that I dumped a whole tray of pop rock truffles. Yeah, a whole tray, and it broke my heart, because man do I love those chocolates, and I know what it takes to make them  (plus, THAT particular batch of my favorites was made on my birthday!). But aside for ruining the pop rocks truffles, I feel like I’m starting to get the hang of enrobing, which made my day. For the first time, I got props for being able to make good chocolates in good time, which is critical when you do everything by hand. I have to give much credit to Cody, who cut the ganache with amazing precision. We were trying out a slightly different recipe for hazelnut, which was challenging. The amount of confectioners sugar in them made rolling the circular truffles rough. Too much time or too much touch and they crumbled into a million pieces, but they were firm, so handling them too softly meant they wouldn’t cooperate. Still, once I prepared the ganache, putting a nice sheen of chocolate around them went surprisingly well.

 After finishing the hazelnut truffles, I made 100 chocolate orange peels. Well actually, it was 101, but I gave a customer a freebie when I saw in her eyes how badly she wanted to try one. I like doing the orange peels. I know they’re sticky and much different from everything else we do, but it’s also the only thing we’re making right now that requires no tools, just a gloved hand and a pool of chocolate for dipping. Nothing feels more handmade than things that bring your hands that close to the chocolate. 

It’s been nice helping people do their holiday shopping across the counter. A lot of customers have been loading up on our holiday collection and candy cane barks as gifts for their people who appreciate really really, ridiculously good chocolate. And while it makes me happy to see people picking up our seasonal specialties, I especially like it when they design custom collections, lending their hand in spreading chocolaty holiday cheer. One thing’s for sure, our customers have crazy good taste. Honest.