Dippers Starting Their Day

Starting off the beginning of the day with some dipped nuts!

Here is the chocolate bin for one of our dipper girls in the dipping room. The dipping room itself is quite cool to keep the candies from melting, although the chocolate itself is kept heated!

Prepping the Candy

In the morning after the candy is cooked and poured, it is ready to move on to the next step!

Here is essentially a mesh "cage" that sifts all the corn starch off the tray of candy and leaves just the candies behind, leaving the cornstarch to be used for the next batch.

Here, Sally is brushing off the additional cornstarch from the candies.

The candies are separated because some will be dipped in milk chocolate, some in dark chocolate. Sandy dips milk chocolate and Judy dips dark. Milk chocolate is typically a bigger seller so a larger portion of the candies are designated for milk!

Delightful Day Visits Brandt's

This last week, the Delightful Day preschool class from St. Bede's Church in Mentor came to pay us a visit (the classes visited Wednesday and Thursday). This includes our very own Layla Stanek, great-grandaughter of the current owners of Brandt's (Dr. & Mrs. James Phillips)!

Here, Tom (one of our cooks) gives the kids a little lesson about our marble countertops. They are always nice and cool and help to cool the candy consistently after it is poured.

The kids are taking a look at the cool alligator and guitar molds!

I can't resist continuously posting pictures of the melted chocolate. I just think it looks so delicious.

Here, Tom is showing the kids how we use our molds to make impressions in the cornstarch, where we then pour the candy.

Here, Margaret shows off the gigantic marshmallow mixing bowl. The bowl is almost as tall as these 4 year olds!

Everyone excitedly waits in line to dip their very own animal crackers in melted milk chocolate.

PS-I ate about 4 of them. ;)

Brandt's Candies Specialties

When you stop in, don't forget to pick up a yummy chocolate guitar or chocolate baseball set to celebrate your Cleveland pride!

If you are looking for a unique way to thank your employees or clients during the holidays, look no further than our Brandt's chocolate thank-you bars. We can even create bars using your very own company logo!

In addition to our large assortment of gift boxes, we also have edible gift baskets filled with delicious chocolates. So yes, you can actually EAT the basket!

Brandt's also has dozens of holiday-specific items as well. Here are just a few of them: Chocolate Christmas trees, chocolate crosses and chocolate Easter bunnies.

The Story of Brandt's Candies Inc

George and Agnes Brandt founded Brandt's Open Kitchen Candy in 1948 in Willoughby, Ohio, a small thriving community east of Cleveland.

The years have gone by, but the location has remained the same!

Customers were able to watch the candy being made in the open kitchen behind the showroom. Brandt's was known throughout the community for the high-quality chocolate produced at the site.

Brandt's Candies Inc. is still doing business the same way today as a family-owned, family-run store. We are proud to carry on the Brandt's tradition at the same location, in order to provide you with the same timeless treats you remember from your childhood.

Our candy is hand-made, following the original recipes and using only the finest ingredients. This gives our candies the fresh and delicious taste that makes our candies so unique.

We hand-dip our delicious creams, jellies, caramels, and marshmallow in fine chocolate. We also hand-dip coconut, dried fruit, and of course our mouth-watering cherry cordials.

Our candy is then displayed in the original showcases, ready for you to take home and enjoy.

Easter Prep

Here is just a small behind-the-scenes glance into our ongoing Easter prep. As you can imagine, Easter is one of our most unbelievably busy times of year. We make a very large amount of molded items (solid chocolate) for Easter, from crosses to bunnies, from small to large. The lovely Barb painstakingly has labeled every single box so we know exactly "who is who" when it comes to each little chocolate animal too. :)

Above, you see our sitting rabbit with clover. Our "dippers", Sandy and Judy, hand pour the chocolate into each metal mold and then apply the extras (such as the flower above) by hand, using chocolate as the "glue" to hold it all together.


As you see here, each item is also hand-wrapped and hand-decorated too. Here, Sandy is curling the ribbon to wrap around the bunny!

Maple Walnut Cream Eggs

These are the same as our maple cream eggs, but with a little extra surprise inside! Above, we see the eggs after they have cooled overnight in the cornstarch mold.


Here are several trays of our delicious eggs, ready to go to the dipping room and be enrobed in delicious chocolate!

Chocolate-Covered Strawberries

Twice a year (for Sweetest Day and Valentine's Day) we sell our hand-made, hand-dipped chocolate covered strawberries.

We purchase our strawberries directly from Heinen's, where they are literally hand-picked for us so that we get only the best, juiciest, sweetest berries of the bunch.


After we go through and hand-inspect each berry, our "dippers" hand-dip each strawberry in chocolate (milk or dark) and then do a chocolate drizzle over the top in the other type of chocolate. Every day we sell these, we make them fresh right before we open the store and then throughout the day.

Unfortunately, chocolate-covered strawberries have a short shelf life, they are really at their best in the first day, maybe two. This is due to the amount of liquid in the strawberry and the tendency of it to get a bit mushy with time. However, that shouldn't matter to anyone, because who will have any left after a day anyways? :)

Marshmallow Cream Eggs

This basically takes over where the last marshmallow recipe left off. Here, the marshmallow cream is over a flame to keep the mixture smooth and pour-able while the eggs are being shaped.


The process is exactly the same as pouring the cream eggs, we are just dealing with a very different type of mix. The marshmallow cream is much more difficult to pour. Here, Tom is putting the finishing touches on a row of eggs.


Here is a close-up view of the finished product. Creamy, smooth marshmallow cream eggs! Once the mixture cools and firms up a bit, they will get their chocolate coating.

Maple Cream Eggs

Here is the beginning of the creamy nougat base for maple cream eggs. The fun thing about these eggs is watching them go from looking so plain to looking so yummy in a very short period of time!


Here you see one of the best ingredients around: brown sugar. The brown sugar helps to both give the candy great flavor but to also help give it the nice brown color!


As you can see, the sugar mixture bubbling away in the kettle is certainly not too pretty. But I promise you it smells wonderful!


Here, Tom is preparing the corn starch trays that will hold the candy in its proper shape while it cools.


These are the molds that we use to make the impressions in the corn starch. As you can see, there are different sizes/shapes for different products. The eggs are egg-shaped (obviously) and larger while the cream molds are smaller and more spherical.


Here, Tom has gone through and made all the indentations for the eggs. The corn starch acts as a cooling agent for the candy and the candy will stay here until it is time for them to be dipped.


Here is the sugar mixture, continuing to bubble! As we always say here, temperature is SO important, so the thermometer is fairly constantly in the liquid to make sure we are very exact!


Our candy base mix is starting to look good, nice and gooey and creamy!


You can't forget maple flavoring! Here it is added before the final mixing! The two mixtures are combined together and it's time to pour!


To properly pour the candy without overfilling/spilling, a small funnel-like apparatus is used with a wooden stick-like object. Tom raises and lowers the stick in order to modify how much liquid is let out.


And here is what they look like! Don't they look delicious??

Caramel!

What you see here is the delicious beginnings of caramel. Here is simply a combination of sugar, water, & corn syrup. As we have talked about before, candies tend to all contain multiple variations of sugar. Not that anyone is complaining of course. :) A little bit of salt is added and the mixture bubbles in the copper kettle until everything is properly melted and smooth.


Above are soy flakes, which are very similar in appearance to butter.


We know everything is better with butter! As you can see, caramel is no exception!


Here, Mary is whisking in the sticks of butter. As they begin to melt, they actually "foam" up, very neat!

Here is a video of the process of evaporated milk pouring through a sieve into the kettle. This is a slow, constant process. The evaporated milk is a lot like cream and acts the same way in this recipe.


Here, the metal rods have been precisely set out in order to hold the caramel once it's poured. This will ensure the caramel doesn't spill out and that the caramel pieces are the proper size and thickness.

Additionally, peanut oil is spread out on the marble tabletop so that the candy doesn't stick to the counter.

This video shows the caramel about midway through. The continuous mixing will continue until the mixture reaches the "magic temperature". Of course I can't tell you what that temperature is!

As you can see, the mixture drastically reduces and thickens as the process continues and the temperature climbs.


Here is the almost-final product, once it has reached the proper temperature. The heat will be turned off, but the mixing will continue until the temperature goes back down to another precise temperature.


The final ingredient, vanilla, is added. And it smells AMAZING!

Here, Barb and Mary pour out the caramel. The copper kettle and caramel together are quite heavy (and very hot) so 2 people are needed to complete the process.

Here, the caramel is being smoothed out to ensure consistency. The marble countertops were purchased specially due to marble's ability to maintain its cool temperature.



Here is the final caramel, in its resting place until the next morning. At that point, it will be cut and this specific batch will be used to make our mock turtles! Yum!