ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, February 10, 1997 TAG: 9702120037
SECTION: NEWSFUN PAGE: NF-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SARAH COX SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES
Friday is Valentines Day, and for some people that means hearts and flowers. But for others, most kids included, this holiday that brightens up the cold days of winter means candy - chocolate candy.
At the Cocoa Mill Chocolate Company, a candy store on the Roanoke City Market, it can take owners Susan Petriella and Bob Aimone two to three days to complete a batch of the beautiful chocolates that might take you 30 seconds to eat.
We're not talking about name-brand candy you find at your corner convenience store. The Cocoa Mill makes truffles (fancy chocolate balls usually decorated,) fudge and snappers (a combination of pecans, caramel and chocolate) - as well as "bark," which is chocolate and peanuts or almonds broken into pieces.
One of the special things about this candy company, a 31/2-year-old business with stores in Lexington (where the kitchen is) and Roanoke, is that all of their ingredients are natural, explained Petriella.
They use no preservatives (chemicals used to help keep foods fresh). And all their candy is made in small batches, by hand, "so it's always being put out in the store right away,'' Petriella said, unlike huge factories that make the candy by machines six to 12 months before it appears on the grocery shelves.
Petriella and Aimone were living in Charlottesville when they started looking around for a business to start. They grew up in New England and knew all about great chocolate candy, because there are little candy shops all over the place in New England, Petriella said.
"We couldn't find what satisfied us in the way of chocolates in the Charlottesville area," she said. They researched the candy business for more than six months, attended the huge semiannual Philadelphia Candy Show, and then visited a candymaker in Pennsylvania who has been making candy out of her kitchen for 30 years.
Then they had to decide what kind of chocolate to buy, where to locate the business and what to make.
"We buy our chocolate in bulk [a lot at one time]," said Petriella, adding that they decided to buy chocolate made in America, rather than the imported kind.
"The cocoa beans are all the same: They have to come from somewhere around the Equator. A good chocolate will have 38-39 percent cocoa butter, as opposed to 30 percent," she said. The more cocoa butter, the richer and smoother the chocolate is.
No two days in their Lexington candy kitchen are alike. Because the candy they make will be sold right away, they make whatever is selling at the moment - like hearts for Valentine's Day - or whatever they're running out of.
On a typical truffle day (truffles take the longest to make), Aimone and Petriella begin the process by putting cream, butter and a "little, teeny bit of corn syrup in a copper pot" until the mixture just begins to boil. Then, the heat is turned off, and 14 to 15 pounds of chocolate is added. This is blended into the pot, and the flavor is added next. The bittersweet truffles, said Petriella, have no extra flavors
The next step is to blend the entire mixture with a giant spatula and pour it onto huge, industrial baking sheets which are then placed on racks in a cooling cabinet. Petriella said the cabinet is like a giant refrigerator, with no humidity.
Every 10 minutes or so the baking sheets are taken out, the chocolate is reblended with spatulas to keep the ingredients well mixed, and then the sheets are put back into the cooling cabinet. After about 30 to 45 minutes the chocolate is set up so well that it has become too hard to mix. At this point, the chocolate is ready for day two.
On day two, Petriella and Aimone scoop the chilled chocolate out of the tray. This takes a long time, because it's done by hand, one scoop at a time. Then, "all these little scoops that look like ice cream have to be hand-rolled. This process has to move quickly," said Petriella.
As soon as that's done, the little chocolate balls (they're not truffles yet!) are ready to be dipped into melted chocolate, which is in a dipping machine that looks like a little tub divided in half. The back half of the tub is solid chocolate and in front is the melted chocolate.
Four 100-watt light bulbs with a thermostat melt the chocolate. This melting step is crucial: If the melted chocolate is not exactly the right temperature, the coating on the balls won't come out shiny and glossy.
Petriella and Aimone take five or six balls in their chocolatey hands and roll them around to coat them, then put the balls on a tray that is lined with special paper. As the tray is filled, it goes back into cooling cabinet once again.
The chocolates set up for a second time and are redipped. Then, they're ready to be decorated. Petriella said each kind of truffle is decorated differently: One might have white chocolate stripes across it, another a dusting of cocoa powder, and some are sprinkled with gold powder.
Each truffle batch makes about 300 to 350 truffles. The truffles are put in candy cups and packed in either 5-pound boxes or placed directly into candy boxes.
Besides chocolates, the candy store's Valentine offerings include heart-shaped shortbread cookies, half-dipped in chocolate, as well as white chocolate bark blended with dried cranberries. And, of course, you'll find heart chocolate lollipops to sweeten your day.
Petriella, who said she likes her chocolate "straight up," and bittersweet, said most of their customers prefer milk chocolate, which is sweeter and goes nicely with nuts. Whatever your choice, have a sweet Valentine's Day.
LENGTH: Long : 103 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: JANEL RHODA/Staff. Holly Bucher of Roanoke checks outby CNBthe Valentine's Day goodies at the Cocoa Mill Chocolate Company on
the City Market. color.