Here is a photo of a finished box:

box of chocolates!

In previous years I’ve used a plain gold box with a red ribbon (bow in center).  This year I designed some box art, printed it out on clear labels, and used them on white boxes.  The result is not only more attractive and better “branded”, it’s also a lot cheaper – white boxes are about 1/4  the price of gold ones.  And – added bonus – the stickers double as closures – they extend over the edge of the boxes to seal it closed.  All in all, I liked this method, and will use it again.

Packing required a certain degree of ingenuity, especially in packing the last few pieces in each layer.  It was like putting together a jigsaw puzzle – trying to figure out which pieces fit where.  In the end we had to leave out the dried apricots and (in some boxes) the English toffee; the boxes were stuffed absolutely full and there was simply no space for them.  Each box weighed approximately 1 full pound, remarkable since last year’s boxes contained only 13 ounces and I would have sworn they were stuffed completely full!  I suspect some fourth-dimensional twist of magically permitting more candy.

And then it was time to sort out the leftovers.  There were about 24 pounds of leftover chocolates, plus some “chocolate slag” left over after the last dipping.  My volunteeers must have carted off fifteen or sixteen pounds of chocolates, leaving about four pounds each  for Mike’s coworkers and mine.  (Well, and a small stash of jasmine tea caramels, which I love too much to part with completely.)  They went home, I printed out and applied all the mailing labels, and stacked the “to be shipped” boxes into a giant box.

End Chocopalooza 2011!  Another successful year of candymaking.

What now?  Well, there is at least another day’s worth of cleanup: washing out chocolate molds, putting away the chocolate containers, and picking up bits of ribbon, extra candy cups, etc.  Tuesday I will probably spend weaving and packing, and then Wednesday it’s off to Maryland!  We are visiting my family for Thanksgiving, chocolates in tow.

Which reminds me – I better prep myself something to do while traveling!  Perhaps it’s time to pop over to the yarn store (or  to my stash) for some sock yarn.  Or maybe I’ll just pack a bunch of weaving books.  All things in time.

And here is a photo of  the entire 90 lbs, 6.4 oz:

90 pounds of homemade chocolates!

Whew!  I’m exhausted.  Off to bed!

Here’s the pic of today’s output:

Eight more flavors!

Clockwise starting from top left:

• Irish coffee
• jasmine tea
• caramelized banana
• kaffir lime/lemongrass/ginger/coconut
• three-chili (ancho, guajillo, chipotle chiles)
• pink peppercorn/buddha’s hand citron/yuzu
• saffron
• cardamom-rosewater-ginger.

(No, it’s not coincidence that the three-chili has the dragon.  I do have a sense of humor…!)

Now all that’s left is the ritual totaling-up of the poundage, and the making of the flavor index.  If it’s like most years, it’s probably in the vicinity of 80-90 lbs of chocolates.  I also need to pack one or two boxes to see how many flavors will fit.  If they won’t all fit (and I rather expect that some won’t), I’ll eliminate the weaker flavors.  Only the fittest (or maybe tastiest?) survive!

Off to bed!  Tomorrow I have to get my car’s tire seen to (it has a slow leak) and then after that, it’s time to clean the kitchen and take the photos for this year’s chocolates insert.  I’d like to do some dyeing, but it probably won’t happen tomorrow – too much chocolate cleanup and finishing work needs to be done.

On the second day of Chocopalooza, my true love made for me...

Clockwise from top left, they are:

• Cherry-rum
• Goat cheese & honey
• Vanilla latte
• Rosemary quince
• Black currant Cointreau

The cherry rum and black currant Cointreau came out beautifully, as did the vanilla latte.   The rosemary quince is heavier on rosemary and shorter on quince flavor than I would have liked, but still tastes excellent.  I don’t really like the goat cheese and honey – the goat cheese flavor is mostly indistinguishable and it has a slightly gritty texture from the curdled bits of goat cheese (I boiled it to sterilize it).  It tastes good, mind you, but mostly it tastes like honey, not goat cheese.  I may drop it if I run out of space.

I’m a bit worried that the chocolates will come out looking boring since virtually all of them will be monochromatic (the printing is all gold); next year, I think I’ll have some more custom transfer sheets printed up, this time in red.  That ought to jazz things up nicely, and red is the  traditional Chinese color for celebration + a classic Christmas color, so quite appropriate to the occasion.

In addition to the five chocolates shown here, my friends and I mixed up four flavors to start off with tomorrow: saffron, three-chili (ancho, guajillo, chipotle chilies), pink peppercorn-Buddha’s hand citron-yuzu, and cardamom-ginger-rosewater.  That leaves only three flavors: jasmine tea, Irish coffee, kaffir lime-lemongrass-ginger-coconut.  It’s entirely conceivable that we could finish all of those tomorrow, leaving me a free day on Saturday!  (Sunday is the chocolate-packing party.)  If so, the first thing I’ll do after cleaning up the kitchen is hightail it outside, to dye the 12 panels for my next muslin.

The first batch of candies from the chocolate factory!

Clockwise from top left:

• apricot-honey
• strawberry-balsamic vinegar
• white guava
• fig-cognac
• prune-honey-port (with cinnamon)

I also mixed up the vanilla latte centers, but haven’t yet dipped them; I’ll do that tomorrow.

So I have five flavors.  Not bad for just under 12 hours’ work!  And tomorrow will likely go even faster, as a friend is coming by to help me out.  At this rate I might be done by Saturday!

Next up, coming tomorrow: rosemary-quince, goat cheese & honey, cherry-rum, and black currant-Cointreau.  If time, caramelized banana and pink peppercorn-Buddha’s hand citron – yuzu (Japanese lemon variant with an incredibly floral-overtoned peel).

And now, off to bed!  But I better shower first, otherwise there will be chocolate on the sheets.  I’m oozing chocolate!

Sweet dreams to all!