2012 brought our attention to Elevate Lifestyle Magazine as we won their first Charlotte Best Of readership award. We are truly grateful that 2013 brings about a second year of fans choosing us in the best of category. We cannot thank everyone enough for loving our small family business.

Best Chocolate Heaven 2013

Voted “BEST” by our readers in our Elevate Lifestyle Awards 2013

We’re always glad to be the best chocolate in Charlotte NC. If our family can ever tickle your palate check out our shop at The Secret Chocolatier .com, 704-323-8178, or drop by our shop today.

Wedding cake crafting is a real joy in the shop. It’s highly personal, intensely creative, and allows me to work with my dad, Bill Dietz. We were honored with this years 2013 Bride’s Choice Awards as a Top Charlotte Wedding Cake Baker and look forward to crafting more delicious and beautiful wedding cakes!

We’re adding to it all the time, look at some of our portfolio of great cakes and chocolates

Top Charlotte Wedding Cake Baker

Here’s an excerpt of our press release or read the full article on PRWeb:

While not all of The Secret Chocolatier’s cakes have been featured in a New York Times article, WeddingWire brides gave less-publicized cakes 5-Star praise, earning the family-owned confectioners a WeddingWire Bride’s Choice Awards® 2013 in the Wedding Cake category.

One of the WeddingWire reviewers raved, “They executed our wishes perfectly; our cake was beautiful and delicious (and we mean DELICIOUS, as in the best we’ve ever had, no kidding). We are so pleased with our experience here that we will be going back for birthdays, anniversaries and any other special occasion that could use a cake or a treat, for years to come.”

Looking for the Best Wedding Cake or Wedding Favors?

Being a chocolate, confections, and cake business we can handle a wide array of wedding requests. Classic wedding cakes, nuevo chocolate truffle & strawberry tree, dessert bars with decadent treats and any of our in-house creations can become customized favors easily!

Check out some of our reviews, visit our wedding page online, or give me a call today at 704-323-8178. I’d like to help  you make your wedding spectacular!

December was just amazing for us. Chocolate, chocolate everywhere! Many times going, ‘How did chocolate get here–and there?!’

It was an odd December though compared to last year. It started off very slow, almost to the point of making us worry and then something changed–attitude, atmosphere, humidity? Who knows, the dam broke and we were under a deluge of people wanting our craft chocolates and confections. So be it!

Long Hours, Early Mornings, Late Nights

We worked the hardest we have since last February (also nicknamed the Valentines Massacre, hehe.) For 12 days we worked between 10 and 12 hour days. Robin and Bill coming in before dawn and leaving well after dusk. Juggling our son Logan between local family members lest we get only 1/3rd of the days list done.

Above all we survived and thrived (with the help of friends and family) and that’s the important part.

Hark, Chocolate Volunteers Needed!

Robin and I have volunteered for many friends and farmers over the years and why we hadn’t thought to ask for our loyal and fun loving fans to be volunteers still escapes me. We really needed help though and a call of volunteers began. Delightfully and unexpectedly we had a lot of people want to help us out and we are quite thankful for their help.

A quick shout out in no particular order to our chocolate elves:

• April, Ava, & Greyson
• Dana
• Scott
• Lindsay
• Charley
• Tamara
• Michaele
• Caren & Sons
• Brad & Matt
• Terie & her Mom
• Allyson
• Gillian
• Tamela & Matt

Thank you so very much! Without you we would have been entirely sleepless.

As February gets closer we’ll probably need some volunteer cupids. If you have an interest donating a few hours of time here and there we are always appreciative for the help and will make sure you eat your fill of chocolates just sign up to our Volunteer Mailing List.

Growing the Chocolate Shop

December showed us that we’re still growing and that makes us very happy! We’re still pleasing lots of bellies and we want to continue to doing so. I’ll have a 2012 wrap up post like I did last year.

For now though we welcome 2013 and are glad we survived 2012. Thanks again to all those who support us, help us, share us, and delight in our creations.

It had been too long since we last convened our chocolate tasters to gather at The Secret Chocolatier. We attempt to do this at biannually as both a celebration to our fans and a great way for us to see how we’re doing, trial out some new products and get open solicitation for new ideas.

This September (yes I’m backlogged on posting) we had a group of 30 to 40 chocolate denizens stop by and work through 8 delicious confections.

Chocolate cherries, 3 chocolate barks, pumpkin bon bon, chocolate molasses caramel, pecan bar, and s’more bars. Oh it was a smorgishborg!

Chocolate Exercises

The point of the exercise is open critiquing. We realized after this year we might have had a few too many things–palate burn occurs somewhere along the way.  We also had a lot of competitive style commentary like product X was better than product Y, when really it’s supposed to be about each thing subjectively not comparatively. It’s all good though, people have a great time and we learn a bit about our customer, their thoughts, tastes, and the feedback is great for us.

There were forms our tasters could leave commentary on. For each product we received around 30 notes which was quite helpful. The following are some excerpts from those tasters.

Pumpkin Spice Bon Bon

Our pumpkin spice bon bon last year was a blend of spices and pumpkin, frozen in balls, then dipped quickly in white chocolate. It was messy and hard to control. This year we modified the recipe just a hint, and then pipped it into bon bon shells we made of white chocolate. It gave us a much better consistency.

Excellent! Fall in a bite sized form.

Good flavor & blend. I liked this and I’m not a white chocolate fan.

Love Love Love! Perfect as is!!

White Chocolate Pecan Bar

A new product to us but an old recipe of Chef Bills. We still haven’t mastered how to productize it but it is such a delicious treat we’re going to find a way.

Absolutely delish! Small bite was all I needed to be satisfied

Don’t change it! It is absolute perfection! Perfect size with an absolutely phenomenal taste.

I might like it a bit (tiny bit) firmer. Delicious!

Better than any pecan pie I’ve tasted!

Bordeaux & Pink Cherries

We had a trial of these cherries in a lot of forms in the shop. The pink ones were a tiny and on their own a bit scary to the palate. Coated they became more tolerable–but who wants to tolerate anything. Enjoyment is what it’s about! The bordeaux cherries were rich, plump, and meaty. A good value and taste but not as bright as the classic marachinos. They’d be great paired with a red wine. Since we had both in the house I coated them and let the public try them like we did.  What we found was interesting and sometimes contradictory which just shows us how much of a unique palate each of us have.

Loved the combo with the dark chocolate. (Bordeaux)

Not my preference (Pink)

Like commercial offerings of others but a lot more intense. (Bordeaux)

Light, juicy, sweet. (Pink)

My personal favorite. Great cherry flavor. (Bordeaux)

My favorite of the two, just simpler and delish. (Pink)

My vote is here. Deeper and more lush. Better balance with the chocolate. (Bordeaux)

S’more Bites

We’ve been trying, repeatedly, to figure this one out. Chef Bill used to make a divine S’more when he worked as an Executive Pastry Chef. It was large, and gooey, torched to perfection and made on demand. Perfect for a sit down establishment but not perfect for portability or to be stocked. We’ve tried really since last year to find the right balance. This enrobed chocolate treat is a real nice treat. I like to say that if you enjoy it cold it’s like a smoked Moon Pie, but if you zap it in the microwave until the marshmallow cracks through the side you’ve got a classic s’more–ooey, goey, finger lickin!

Campfire memories in a bite! Loved it!

Too soft, needs some crunch.

Nice flavor, maybe toasted more?

Has texture like a moonpie. Dark chocolate, good!

More creamy filling!

From these and other notes we’ve continued to tinker with our recipe and have increased the scorching of the marshmallow. It was losing its punch when coated in chocolate. That’s been recovered. As well explaining a little heating action goes a long way into making this a wonderful product.

Molasses Chocolate Caramels (Old Fashioned Molasses Pull)

This was one that took people by surprise. Chef Bill loves digging through old cook books. In an 1860′s book he found a chocolate caramel recipe, but it was made with molasses. Pretty neat, right? He had a lot of tweaking to do, the cook times weren’t translating. We’d get something like taffy to lollies and in the end it was a 5′ difference that was creating the havoc. During the event we had people suggest names, we then had a poll on Facebook that helped decide the name. It’s being worked on this week and should be ready soon the new, Old Fashioned Molasses Pull.

So much fun! Nice change from the rich chocolate.

Very classic, great chew.

New to my palate. I like that it lasts a long time. Chewy!

Lovely blend. Molasses isn’t my fave, but these are very good.

So unique, please develop this!

Caramelized Cacao Nib & Espresso Bark

We’d love to pan our own espresso beans but the equipment outlay is not in our cards for now. We were struck that using espresso as an inclusion in a bark would be a great compromise. However I like thinks to have harmonies, rarely does a solo performance in a bark thrill me. In truffles, it’s about all we do, and it means something there. Here though a roasted and caramelized cacao nib made a great compliment of crunch and chocolate to what might have been overtly espresso driven.

Nice bark, a little bit thick, and didn’t notice the cacao nib flavor.

I love the crunch (without nuts!) Didn’t taste nibs.

I really liked — perfect crunch.

Stunning. Keep it chunky & rustic. Consider salt.

Love the fine crunchy texture. Very toasty.

There were more ‘hard to taste cacao nib flavor’ within our notes so I basically flipped the numbers on our espresso to nib ratio and that helped considerably. I am also try to make this as thinner bark which has created a nicer bite.

Salted Pecan Cherry Bark

Roasted pecans, chewy tart cherries, a pinch of cyprus sea salt. What could be better? I’m addicted to this bark and I found that quite a few others might be as well. It was my first foray into chocolate barks and I’m quite pleased.

Perfect blend of salty and sweet. Like a great trail mix.

Wonderful blend of sweet, “bitter”, crunch and chew.

Loved this! Just enough of everything! One of my favs!

Perfect, don’t change a thing!

Oh my yum!

Pistachio and Apricot Bark

Our families Aunt Joan and a local fan both came up with this one to try. I really liked how the flavor profile changed based on the clean bright acidity of an apricot and the pistachio’s…pistachioness (yea–take that tasters–ok ok.. a buttery, mild nutty, cashew almond hybrid!)

I love the pistachio/chocolate combination but it’s great with the apricot.

Pistachio flavor was light and maybe overpowered by the apricot. Try pumpkin seeds?

I really liked this, but not enough pistachio flavor.

Needs more apricot!

A bit flat, not my favorite.

Wow, this is a great combo. Tasty!

To say the least this is still being worked on. Lots of polarities in peoples likes. I’m going to keep this in research and probably release a refined version in January. It has the taste of a new year and I’m sure I’ll have something we can all celebrate then.

That’s a Lot of Chocolate!

As you can see we had quite a party and everyone left with a bit of a chocolate induced buzz. If you’d like to be invited to our next gathering just make sure you are on our Parties segment of our mailing list.

All of this is an effort to stay connected and transparent with our consumers. We’re a business that likes your involvement and cherishes a relationship. We hope you’ll stop by the store or order some goodies from us soon.

Here’s an event I thought would be fun for the family and you get to go home with tasty graham cracker treats.  Join us at The Secret Chocolatier to roll, cut, bake, and decorate your own graham crackers.  We bake up tasty house made graham crackers made with three flour types and local Cloister honey. The smells are incredible! The taste wonderful!

Family Friendly

This is a family friendly event with a max participation count of 12 people (or little ones.)  You’ll get a ball of graham cracker dough that can make up to 4 of our large graham crackers. However we suspect with creativity you can make many more, or a few much larger.  You’ll have your creativity and themed cookie cutters to make the shapes you’d like to eat and share.  Once baked we’ll have a bunch of decorating bags full of colored chocolate that you can put finishing touches onto your graham cracker cookies.

Thanksgiving Ready

This should be a fun event and give you something that you can either devour on the spot, or share with the family later on that week during Thanksgiving.

For more information and to sign up please visit our event on Eventbrite: http://tsc-tday-graham.eventbrite.com/

Many pictures can be found in our Halloween Chocolate Diorama Portfolio.

The Secret Chocolatier Halloween Diorama

Last Sunday we invited the public and our fans out to join us for an afternoon decorating halloween treats that would be used in our halloween diorama project. The turnout was fantastic; over four hours we had around 30 people join in painting, decorating, (and eating mistakes) chocolate bones, mummies, hands, pumpkins, bats, and more. It was stunning just how much artistic material was created in four short hours.

After all the chocolate settled (and set) we organized the pieces and laid them out for the next day. We’re closed on Monday’s so we wanted to use the opportunity to focus on finishing the set.  At this time we had only the frame painted in a tempered chocolate and a couple of trees (one made from modeling chocolate, and one a large baked graham cracker) and a skull embedded in a marshmallow moon. Even though we had a couple of rough sketches of what we had ideas for nothing was finalized.

Rise of the Chocolate Minions!

In essence we wanted to build something that best reflected the work of the community. Wedging our artistic vision the opposite way would have been a lot more difficult.

We began to play with combinations, pondering a small story of a ‘Secret Cemetery’ where the world began to unravel and The Nightmare Before Christmas danced in our heads.

Overall the idea came together swiftly but it took more than a day to build some of the chocolate sculptures (made from our own modeling chocolate) and I had a few issues during my pulled sugar work that hindered the project.

The Secret Cemetery

An archway leads you into our secret cemetery. Broken cobblestone with some strange unearthly matter bleeds underneath them leading you  past a minos grande, or maybe it’s the chocolate reaper to a house that has a mind of its own. If you veer off the path to the left you find a graveyard and slippery slope of a mudslide that has unearthed residents long forgotten. While on your right there is a frozen lake that has a story only the dead know.

Come See the Chocolate Work!

We had a lot of fun and from what feedback we’ve heard everyone who came out had a lot of fun too.  We utilized at least 90% of what was created and made sure everyone has something of their own they can find in this 4′ set of spooktacular chocolate. The diorama will be on display through the end of October.

Already in the works is 2013′s set and we’re going to start earlier to put even more detail and artistic creepy flair into it.

The Process & Components

Tempered Chocolate

Tempered chocolate gives a rather strong structure to work from. We painted it on in layers letting the sky set first then flipping the structure over to do the floor, finishing with the outer sides to cover the entire scene.

• Overall Frame Reinforcement (inside and outside)
• Base sky & floor

Modeling Chocolate

Modeling chocolate is a ratio of corn syrup & chocolate. The chocolate need not be in temper and the corn syrup delays crystallization. This gives you a good amount of flexibility to build and sculpt chocolate however you want (usually in layers) and then when it cools completely it’s as hard as a tempered chocolate but a little bit more delicate.

• Walls
• Tombstones
• Bricks
• Wooden House
• Roofing
• Trees
• Miasma Ghouls
• Reaper Body
• Pits & Graveyard

Dipping Chocolate

A chocolate product where the cocoa butter is replaced by another oil. Since this art piece was not meant to be eaten and we didn’t want to waste quality craft chocolate on it we ordered some dipping chocolate to quickly make the chocolate ornamentals / actors. In a matter of hours we were able to pop out a lot of molds this way. The downside is the oil that replaces cocoa butter has a tendency to melt at a lower temperature so if you’re not careful melting in your hands occurs easily.

• Skulls
• Tombstones
• Bones
• Bats
• Fingers
• Hands
• Mummies
• Pumpkins, etc

Marshmallow

We make our own marshmallows so this was an easy win. Once a marshmallow dries out it stays in shape permanently.

• Moon
• Clouds

Sugar

I’ve had a lot of fun in the past few months learning how to work with sugar. As I’ve educated myself on pulling sugar some great ideas were born for this project. While many did not get done, next year should include a few more. It was a lot of fun to work with.

• Lake / Pond
• Pulled Sugar Breeze / Sky
• Skull Eyes

Cake

• Earth (we saved up a huge amount of cake scraps to crumble.)

The rest of the pictures from the diorama can be found in our Halloween Chocolate Diorama Portfolio.

The Secret Chocolatier for Halloween

If you’re looking for something more fun for the kid in you or the kids in your life drop by The Secret Chocolatier. We’ve got an array of tasty ghoul snacks from fingerling pretzels, chocolate decorated skulls, chocolate coffins filled with caramelized cacao nibs and white chocolate bones, and more.

Where better a place to start than the beginning. Join me for an early evening of chocolate tasting and palate building on October 26th from 6:30pm to 8:00pm. Event tickets can be picked up on EventBrite.

Where Does Chocolate Come From?

Sure chocolate comes from Hershey’s.. oh wait, what?  Just kidding, many people know chocolate comes from tropical climates but where?  Let’s explore where chocolate comes from, regional diversity, processing methods, and the products that are produced.

The Language of Taste

A tasting is the exploring of flavors and talking about it. In this social gathering we need to have a language of taste, a common vocabulary so we can better know and share what we’re experiencing.  We will also look at different tasting methodologies and why they are important.

Entertainment

At the end of a day what better way to spend it than with some chocolate enthusiasts wanting to learn more? This event is a primer for future events, don’t worry though if you miss this event I’ll make sure to have more.  We will also continue to delve into many different avenues of the sweet palate (chocolate regions, sugars, salts, pairings and more) so I for one am looking forward to a long and interesting journey to come.

Event Details

Tickets available on Eventbrite.

This Sunday, October 14th from 12:00pm to 4:00pm we are having a special event. We’d like you to help us build our Halloween diorama  made of chocolate and confections.

A Chocolate Stage

The stage will be set by The Secret Chocolatier minons while the actors, skeletons, henchmen, bats, mummies and more will be developed by you. The kitchen will be closed and converted into a candy halloween workshop with tables setup with an assortment of chocolate creatures.  The Secret Chocolatier’s are available to help with your vision and decoration then we’ll help you find a home for it on the chocolate stage.

Before the Chocolate Curtain Goes Up

After the event while the shop is closed the following day we will finalize the set, putting the ghoulish finishing touches for unveiling Tuesday the 16th.

Chef Bill has always had a fun love for halloween and we’re hoping this is the first of many installments over the years to come.

If you would like to come be a part of our chocolate halloween entertainment please RSVP to our event on Facebook  so we can track the general number of attendees.  We want to make sure there are enough goodies for everyone to play with.

Where can you find amazing chocolates in uptown Charlotte?  After the passing of our last outpost (Blynk) we are so happy to have two wonderful spots for you to get your chocolate fixes at.

Not Just Coffee

Do you love coffee but can’t find much good in Charlotte? Travel fast to Not Just Coffee in the 7th Street Market you will not be disappointed.  James and his crew do perfect espresso extractions, pour over fresh coffee, and more to the utter delight of this coffee fiend.  While there you can nosh on The Secret Chocolatier’s toffees, dipped graham crackers, enrobed brownies and more.  We’re working with James to find the best way of having some of our truffles so be on the look out as time moves forward.

Marriott re:Store at Center City Charlotte

In the uptown quad, working, walking, looking for a snack or gift? We’ve stocked the Marriott Uptown with a bevy of our chocolates (including mousse!), confections (caramels & toffee), cakes-in-a-jar (all three) and more.  We are also working with their staff to test the display cases for humidity because they would definitely like our truffles but we want to make sure they can be offered in their best condition.

We are so happy to once again have places you can go to get your chocolate fix. We’ll be working with these locations as well to bring holiday items for easy pickup in the coming season. If you know another sundries that would be a great fit for The Secret Chocolatier we’re happy to investigate.  After all, when you need some great chocolate, you need some great chocolate!

Growing a business, any business, in the dark is a recipe for failure.  When we began to get serious about The Secret Chocolatier we quickly brought in advisors from SCORE, SBA, and business leaders within our lives.

It Takes a Village

As the holiday season approaches and we begin looking ahead at the trials and tribulations of 2013 we once again raised our banner seeking out business advice of those who helped us to this point for further ideas on traversing to the next.  Through this process we also found new people who lent their support and for that we are thankful.

In a Nutshell

Compressing many wise business voices is difficult, in a nutshell we were showed how our team is growing tighter as we learn better how to work with each others strengths.  We are admired at what we have accomplished and have been chided about what we are not doing.  Our biggest weakness is like I have posted before, sales. We need to not be afraid so much as learn to enjoy the adventure of failing and celebrate the wins along the way.  As well we were told to continue to be testing, evaluate ourselves, our products, and our motives vigilantly so that we are always moving forward towards our goals.

Thank You

• Chuck Sawicki with SCORE
• Tim Connor, Sales Leadership
• Shelia Neisler, Catalyst Marketing
• Chia-Li Chien, Value Growth Institute
• Jim Povec, Executive Coach
• Steve Case, DDI Leasing
• Tamela Rich, Author & Adventurer with MBA Smarts
• Jerry Oaks, Synergy USA

The life cycle of a business seems to be either a quick moment in time or a lifetime and I would sincerely like to think we are a part of something that will last far beyond us. Only time, smart decisions, business logic, and luck will see us there.

We cannot say enough kind things about those who lend us their time, efforts, energies, thoughts, and networks. We are a long way from where we want to be but we continue to create fantastic products making so many smile along the way.