Couverture chocolate is the highest quality chocolate you can buy. It contains more cocoa butter than baking chocolate, and most importantly, does not contain any non-cocoa fats. Fake chocolate, also called compound chocolate, contains additional vegetable oils as well as artificial ingredients as well to make working with the chocolate easier.

Couverture chocolate is tricky to work with and requires proper tempering and storage conditions. One thing you may not know is that it will take on whatever scents or odors are around it, so keep it away from anything you wouldn't want to taste!

The chocolate we use is Callebaut, and sometimes Guittard, couverture chocolate. Both companies have strict sustainable and ethical guidelines they follow, setting them apart from other large chocolate companies, such as Nestle and their subsidiary couverture brand, Peters.

Being a Michigan small business, we do not support Nestle's mistreatment of our most precious natural resource, water.

The process of making candy is complicated, but the ingredients shouldn't be.

We use real butter, cream, and sugar in our candies. Caramel made with evaporated milk has no place here! How can something evaporated have more ingredients than the real thing? I don't know, but I'm staying away from it.

Flavors & colors should come from Nature, and we love finding new & interesting ways to incorporate gifts from Nature into our candy. From vibrant red raspberry juice used to color and flavor our raspberry buttercreams to pure local maple syrup used to make our creamy maple bon bons, we enjoy sticking to what is already around us here in Michigan.

The chocolate we use contains soy lechitin, but we do carry soy-free dark chocolate made from scratch by Ethereal Confections in Woodstock, IL.

The dark chocolate we use does not contain dairy, and we do make & carry a rather wide variety of dairy-free items. However, our caramels are dipped in dark chocolate, so if that amount of cross-contamination is a concern, then we wouldn't risk it.

Tree nuts and peanuts are used in the kitchen, but care is used and protocols are followed to minimize exposure and cross-contamination of non-nut products as much as possible.

Fortunately, most all of the products in the whole shop are gluten-free. The few candies we do make that contain gluten follow the same strict protocols as our nut items. For example, chocolate that is used for dipping candies containing nuts or gluten are not used for dipping anything else.

Items containing gluten in the shop: pretzels, beer caramels, malt balls, cordials

Egg whites and albumen are in very few candies, but are in our gluten-free shortbread and in the decorative royal icing atop our decorator cup in assorted boxes.

Please feel free to ask us any questions you have about allergens. We want y'all to stay safe!