Maine has great summers, and Maine has great chocolate (see why here.). But if you add chocolate and summer together, with temperatures reaching the 80s and 90s even in Maine, you may, if you’re not careful, end up with a less-than-ideal mess of melted sweetness. Temperatures Across the US For eight or more months of…
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When I try to find words of meaning, and struggle with what to say that’s not be said before, I almost always hold back, rationalizing it’s pointless to add my voice to the mix when I don’t have anything original to say. There are already so many voices out there with more weight than mine,…
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My dad usually got a “Happy Father’s Day” shout from us kids, either in person when we lived under the same roof, or on the phone, after we had moved away. When we were together, maybe we mustered a gift of golf balls or a new spatula for the grill, but usually he got the…
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By Kristin Thalheimer Bingham | Originally published in Creative Maine Magazine, MAY – JUNE 2021 ISSUE Whenever I meet someone new (back when meeting someone new used to happen) and tell them I’m married to a chocolatier, the most common response is, “Oh my god, you are so lucky!” Then I tell them we’re co-owners…
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Gluten-Free, Dairy-Free, Soy-Free, Egg-Free, and as Always, Nut-Free Chocolate There’s a big wide world of allergies that affect individuals and families every moment of every day. The six biggest allergens are milk, eggs, peanuts, tree nuts, soy, and wheat (gluten), according to WebMD. Other high-frequency food items that cause allergies are fish, shellfish, and seeds, like…
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The perfect pairing: mom + chocolate. There are stay-at-home moms, work-outside-the-home moms, moms that make sourdough bread, moms that make mojitos. Just like moms, Mother’s Day chocolate comes in all shapes and sizes. My mom was a chorale musician who played poker with a straight face, drank bourbon, and liked the black jellybeans best. Since our job is to…
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Why does a bunny bring chocolate eggs for Easter? That’s puzzling, isn’t it? Easter, one of the two most important Christian holidays of the year, is observed globally by over 2.3 billion people. Many of these people, along with millions of non-Christians world-wide, will hop to it every spring to fill Easter baskets with chocolate…
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Making the decision to “go vegan” and never eat meat or consume products derived from animals is a major life decision. For some people, just the notion of giving up bacon on their breakfast sandwich is a deal-breaker. But the vegans I know, whom I admire greatly for their commitment to their health, the Earth,…
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Answering the Calls for Cocoa Bombs – The New Hot Chocolate Craze The first cocoa bombs started in 2019 as a TikTok viral phenomenon. We started getting calls for them in fall of 2020. That’s when we and folks like the Today Show and the Washington Post finally caught up to the fast-moving social media world. So while the…
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February 14th is a big day at Dean’s Sweets, as you might imagine. For weeks leading up to Valentine’s Day, we are prepping like eager cupids, making ganache for the truffles, pouring chocolate into cute little heart-shaped molds, tying pretty red ribbons on anything in sight. We ordered our fancy heart-shaped boxes in September this year,…
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