Our Advent Calendar: the Surprises Inside (plus Ingredients Revealed)
The allure of an Advent calendar are the surprises nestled inside. The Advent calendar tradition allows us to open only one of these tiny doors each day, giving us a small pleasure as a hint – a miniature sample of what’s to come. These daily gifts, craftily hidden behind a window, a door, or in our case, inside a little wooden drawer, only build our excitement and whet our appetite for each consecutive day ahead, and lead up to the big event, Christmas Day. Adults love Advent calendars; kids adore them and can barely contain themselves to find out the daily surprise!
So, why am I about to reveal all (or almost all) of the secrets and surprises of our Advent calendar here? Well, because someone needs to know what all the good stuff is. Someone needs to know so they can decide if that’s what they want their family to have for Advent. Whether it’s to learn about ingredients, allergens, or age appropriateness for their kids, someone, usually the one who plays Old Saint Nick him or herself, will be the one filling those hidden doors with all the surprises inside.
The Reveal
Spoiler alert: You still have time to turn away if you don’t want to ruin the surprise of what’s in our Advent calendars. But if you would like a rundown of what we offer with some details about ingredients attached, here it is:
Truffles, Caramels, and Buttercreams
It’s very handy that our truffles, caramels, and buttercreams fit so neatly and perfectly in the little pull-out drawers of the wooden Advent calendar we offer. Produced in partnership with Doles Orchard Box Shop in Limington, Maine, each of these drawers are just the right size to hold a scrumptious sweet treat. Both the festive holiday house and the chocolates are all hand-crafted. For the chocolate, we use the finest ingredients we know of. Included in the Advent calendar are some of our best sellers:
- Maine sea salt caramels in dark and milk chocolate
- Double dark, milk, and peppermint truffles
- Vanilla and raspberry buttercreams
Ingredients:
70% dark chocolate, 56% semisweet chocolate, milk chocolate, heavy cream, butter, cane sugar, heavy cream, Maine sea salt, peppermint schnapps for flavor, organic peppermint extract, fondant sugar, freeze dried raspberries, pure vanilla extract
Allergens:
Soy lecithin, dairy.
Worry-free:
As always, all of our chocolate is completely tree and ground nut free.
Chocolate, Chocolate, and More Chocolate
The holiday house Advent calendar contains items that are specifically oriented to the season and celebrate not just Christmas, but also this wintery time of year. And, not surprisingly for us, the items all fall under the category of chocolate. More surprises (and ingredients) revealed are:
- Snow people in dark, milk, and white chocolate
- Nonpareils in holiday colors
- Peppermint drops (also great to add to hot chocolate!)
Ingredients:
70% dark chocolate, milk chocolate, white chocolate, nonpareils (sugar + confectioners glaze), peppermint (cane sugar, corn syrup, color added, pure peppermint oil, red 40)
Allergens:
Soy lecithin, dairy.
Worry-free:
The above products are gluten-free (as are all our chocolates) and made in a facility with no possibilities of cross contamination from other items in production.
As always, all of our chocolate is completely tree and ground nut free.
If you’re the one playing Santa, don’t worry, I haven’t given away all the surprises. I’ve only just filled you in on the parts that you might worry about, the ingredients and allergens, because for some families, that information is the difference between a happy celebration and a trip to the hospital.
And as for the other items in the Advent calendar that are still a surprise, rest assured, they all have the same ingredients and allergens as the chocolates above. They are just different shapes and sizes. We can leave that part a secret to be discovered. And if you’re asking yourself, are all the chocolates, caramels, truffles, and buttercreams REALLY nut-free and gluten-free, the answer is yes, and here’s where you can read more about our nut-free history and current practices.
Surprises are fun, usually. And the lead up to Christmas, whether you’re following the original Advent Christian traditions or counting down the days and building the anticipation in a purely secular way, is a festive, joyful time that is enjoyable to share with the kids and adults in your life. Sometimes, however, surprises are less fun, when there are questions about allergens and ingredients that have a major impact on our families. So now you have a little bit of both: answers about what goes into our Advent calendars with a few chocolate-y surprises to reveal for yourself. When you open that little door, we hope you’ll have just enough information to be surprised and thoroughly delighted by the treat nestled inside.