Au Revoir Teaberry!

We've been doing a lot of flavor prototyping and testing and you'll soon see the partial results of that when we launch the new Cherries Jubilee flavor in our Celebration Time collection in a little less than two weeks. 

The rest of the results will be found in a refresh of our Adventurer's Pack. The pack will expand to include 4 flavors: Pistachio-Marshmallow and 3 yet-to-be-announced flavors. Nutmeg Creme can already be found in the Spice Rack; but tingly Teaberry will be retiring. We'll give her a gold watch and wish her well... We'll sell off our current batch of Teaberry dozens, and that will be it! 

photo by Kevin Keeker

We wanted to let her loyal fans know so they could get them while they could. So if you are one of the Teaberry lovers, get your lollipops while you can.

Large Orders & Shipping Charges

photo by Kevin Keeker

Etsy is wonderful in that they let you charge less in shipping when a customer buys more than one item from your shop. So we can calculate how much we should charge for the first item you buy, and have smaller shipping fee for additional items that you order. We've done the math (and boy do we like math!) to calculate how much we should charge for typical orders.

However, sometimes we get atypically large orders. If you're going to buy, say, more than 4 dozen lollipops, you might want to drop us a line and tell us a) what you want to order and b) what your zip code is. Oftentimes, we can reduce the shipping charges when you're buying a lot of lollipops. And if you're within Seattle, you might be able to skip the shipping charges altogether by arranging a local pick-up with Susan.

Weddings and Lollipops

photo from Shelby & Andrew Cavette

Some of our customers bought a few dozen of our lollipops as favors for their wedding and had these cute labels made for them. I think they look awesome. Congratulations!

Cherries Jubilee

Yesterday was the first time I made our new flavor, Cherries Jubilee and I couldn't help snapping a couple of quick iPhone photos of the occasion.

Here they are, after they've been poured. It is probably hard to tell in this one, but they're a lovely pure red that's been shot through with sparkly lavender.

Now, the Cherries Jubilee lollipops have been bagged and await their silver wire ties to finish off their outfits. I admit I got a little excited when I saw how beautiful the blue wrappers looked on them:

They are ready for their (blurry) close-up!

We're excited to bring you this flavor, which combines the yumminess of Washington Cherry goodness with a boozy hint of buttery Rum. Look for Cherries Jubilee to debut at Seattle's Urban Craft Uprising show, July 9-10 and debuting in our Etsy shop shortly thereafter -- we gotta take much better photos than these first!

Eye Candy: A Tiffany Cake

photo stolen from Dessert Girl, who has
a beautiful website you should be reading

That? Is a cake. And it is gorgeous. It's one of many, many beautiful cakes that Maggie Austin Cake (from Washington, DC) features on her website. I would love to have one someday.

Why Handmade Hard Candy?

What makes our small-batch handmade hard candy lollipops superior to mass-produced ones? Obviously, one way is that we take chances on creative, unusual flavors that you rarely find from other candy makers. Some the special characteristics of our lollipops might be less obvious until you’ve eaten them or at least seen them up close; namely: their smooth, dense texture and how beautifully clear they are.

photo by Kevin Keeker

Why does texture matter? If you’re a biter, and you chomp on our lollipops, they cleave more cleanly than mass produced ones, which are prone to shattering when bitten.

We achieve this texture by refraining from overworking the syrup after it has reached the hard crack stage (~300 F). Commercially produced hard candy usually has the color and flavorings worked into the syrup after it has cooked. Our small-batch methods use a few techniques to avoid overworking the syrup.
 
We add the coloring while the syrup is still coming up to its final temperature on the stove, leveraging the motion of the bubbling syrup to distribute the color evenly without having to stir it. Working the color in afterward would incorporate air into the product, which makes it more brittle, more light-weight, and frosty-opaque**.

**When we make opaque lollipops, we do it through creative color combinations that don’t compromise the texture of our lollipops.

Mass produced lollipop syrup is also usually worked into a long strip and stamped out into its final form. We use a more time-consuming gravity-pour method to portion the syrup smoothly into individual lollipop molds instead of using machines to stamp them.

If you’ve had our lollipops, how do you think they compare to big commercially produced brands in terms of texture and appearance?