Cherry Cordial Tumbler Video

Here is a video that shows the loud process of tumbling the cherry cordials!

Cherry Cordials!

Cherry cordials are one of the candies that are pretty neat to see being made. And of course are very delicious to eat. You bite through the chocolate shell and you get to the sweet juicy inside. Yum!

As you see above, the cherry cordials start out as plump, bright maraschino cherries.


The very first step in creating the center of a cherry cordial is to take the maraschino cherries for a tumble in a mixture of sugar and flavorings!


As the cherries tumble, Tom uses a "flavor gun" to spray into the tumbler as it goes. This creates great layers of flavor and sweetness inside the cordial.


When you make the cordials, many come out looking great and perfectly shaped. However, some come out either malformed or too tiny. Which introduces a perk of owning a candy shop, eating the mistakes!! Because it would be a crime to throw them out!


Here is the delicious milk chocolate that will soon be covering some of the cordials (the rest will be dark chocolate). Here, one of our "dippers" (Sandy and Judy are exclusively in charge of all of the chocolate work, they have many years of experience. It is definitely an art!).


The first step here is giving the cordial some chocolate "feet". Since the cordials are spherical, they will roll around unless they are given a flat base to set them down.


And here is the awesomely delicious and gorgeous finished product!

Coffee Truffles

After talking about the fairly complicated process of making marshmallow, let's talk about something a little bit different: Coffee Truffles. Above, you can see that the beginning of coffee truffles isn't unlike the start of baking: melted butter!


Next comes ooey, gooey, chewy nougat cream. Nougat is the type of candy that is the inside of a lot of familiar candy bars (3 Musketeers, Milky Way, etc.)


Time to measure out the coffee cognac flavoring. As we have mentioned before, you want to be very precise with your measurements so you don't end up with an overpowering (or underwhelming) flavor.


A good old-fashioned mixing with a fork in a mixing b0wl is all that is needed to get the flavorings and the butter combined.





Barb creates a weekly plan of what will be made based on the current supply and the customer demand.


Here Margaret is getting some melted chocolate from the tanks to add to the truffle mix. The truffles are one of our few candies that have the chocolate both mixed into the inside and also on the outside.


We aren't kidding when we say hand-made! Here Mary is wrist-deep in truffle!


Here she is working the "dough" on the marble slab.


Here is the finished product of what will be the insides of the coffee truffles. Now they are just waiting overnight to receive their chocolate exterior!


Six of our finished products!

Marshmallow (Part 2)

The hot and super-steamy ingredients have all been poured into the mixer, hence all this steam you see! Now it is time to add the final ingredients.

Here is our last dose of flavor: some vanilla and yet another sugar substance! :)


Of course whenever you cook, you also must clean up. We use a mixture of citric acid and water to get our pots nice and sparkly clean!


Here Tom is setting up a resting place for the marshmallow. Metal borders are set up to contain the marshmallow once it is poured. Here is where it will rest and set until the next morning when it is cut!


Looks great! Time to pour!


The candy and the bowl together are quite heavy, so this is a team effort!


Once it is poured, the marshmallow is spread out evenly over the table.


In a later blog post, we will delve further into the prepping/dipping processes, but here is the delicious final product from our lovely day of marshmallow. Yum!

Marshmallow Boiling!

I thought the pictures don't do the process justice, so I added this video!

Time to Make Some Marshmallow! (Part 1)

What you see above is the number one most important step in starting any candy recipe! No matter how familiar you are with a recipe, you need to read and re-read each time because the measurements/temperatures/etc. need to be painstakingly exact or things will not turned out as planned! Here we see Tom getting ready to start!

Here is the first step, measuring out the gelatin! Did you know that all gelatin is actually derived from animal bones?? Crazy, right? The variety we use is bovine (from cows) and is certified kosher (Although certainly not vegan!)

Next comes the sugar and corn syrup! Which are both technically just 2 forms of sugar. You will find that, in candy making, you end up using multiple forms of sugar in your recipes. Each serves its own unique purpose in the recipes, whether it be to add to the taste or to modify the texture!
As you can see above, corn syrup is very different in texture than your typical granulated sugar!

While Margaret was measuring out the ingredients, Tom has been hard at work whisking up the gelatin and water.

Here we see Tom adding sugar #3!!

As old-fashioned and tried-and-true as you can get, the old time copper pot is used for cooking our candies!

The mixing is done using another great old-fashioned item, the wooden spoon!


As we mentioned before, it is SO important that you follow exact measurements while making candy. The thermometer directly in the liquid allows us to get an immediate check to ensure things are right where they should be!

Things are now really getting underway. Check out all that foamy goodness!

Why Have a Blog for a Candy Store??

After 61 years, it could be asked why Brandt's Candies needs a blog. Obviously things are running smoothly and our customers keep coming back. Those customers are the reason WHY we wanted to do this.

We wanted to start this blog as a way of being able to include our customers in a deeper way. We see you in front of the showcase, but there is so much more than just pieces of chocolate on a tray. Through this blog, you will be able to directly interact with us and be able to see not only how candies are made, but also some of the ins and outs of how our company runs!

We tell everyone that we see about how our candies are home-made and hand-dipped, but do you know what that really means and what that entails? This way, you can join us on a journey of learning how simple, fresh ingredients become delicious candy!

If there is something you would like to see on here, please tell us! If there is something you don't like, tell us! This is YOUR blog and we want the content to be customer-driven.

The blog will be updated 1-2 times per week, you can always count on a fresh post each weekend. Keep coming back and I promise to provide you with interesting, delicious content!

Welcome to Brandt's Candies!

Brandt's Candies has been a long-standing cornerstone of Willoughby' Ohio since 1948. Although ownership has changed throughout the years since the days of the original Brandt family, all the best parts have stayed the same.

Our family took over and re-opened Brandt's in September 2005. To this day, we use the same recipes and make the same candies with the same quality that have people have come to expect over the years! We feel that we have a good thing going and we hope to only expand upon it and grow with the needs (yes, chocolate is a need!) and wants of our customers!