Dean dipping chocolate truffles in tempering machine

Chocolate tempering. Ever heard of it? If yes, congratulate yourself for knowing this fairly obscure term. If no, give yourself a pass — you’re in good company.  Chocolate tempering is central to the art of making fine chocolate. It’s a term and a process we, as chocolatiers, use every day, so it surprises me that…
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Dean's Sweets Chocolate Flowers

It’s not all chocolate and flowers around here. A lot of chocolate flowers, sure, as we prep for Mother’s Day, but there are many other things we think about when it comes to honoring our moms. I’ll get back to chocolate in a moment, but here are a few of our favorite non-chocolate items the you might…
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Chocolate Ingredients

Maine is a rich source of wonderful local flavors that go so well with our chocolate. There’s an abundance to choose from, and we make careful choices so that we can bring the best the state has to offer to our customers both here in Maine and all over the country. You can see a…
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Dean's Sweets Nonpareils in Milk, Dark, and White Chocolate

Can You Say That? We have a popular and fun chocolate item in our stores and on our website that no one, including myself, really knows how to pronounce. It is the nonpareil. I’ll add the pronunciation here, mostly for my own benefit, taken from Merriam-Webster, so we can all be on the same page: ˌnän-pə-ˈrel. Or in…
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Maine Sea Salt Dark Chocolate Squares

Standing behind the counter helping customers at our chocolate store gives me a laboratory to watch human behavior. Any retailer will tell you the same. The public parades before us. I see couples newly in love. I see parents exhausted from a family vacation. I can tell if a customer is a chocolate connoisseur or…
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