Tag: candy store
A Candy Manufactory classic in the making
While Miss Kim has been in the headlines and the Roadhouse is renovating (so far, so good—the target reopening date is still February 16), the Candy Manufactory continues to quietly make these terrifically tasty peanuts. It’s easy for them to go unnoticed with all that’s going on in the world at large and in our small corner of it here at Zingerman’s. The Candy Crew does for confectionery what the team at Alabama Chanin is doing for clothing: going back to traditional craft techniques that honor the dignity of the raw material, the dignity of the people who produce them, and the deliciousness and dignity of the finished product.
While the crew at the Candy Manufactory has been crafting these them for years now, I honestly hadn’t eaten any of these Salt & Pepper Peanuts for ages. No real reason—they just sort of fell off my regular “playlist.” That changed last week when I bought a bag to bring home and was reminded of just how darned good they really are. When they first came out a few years ago, I thought they were a 10 out of 10! I’m glad to say they still are!
What makes the Salt & Pepper Peanuts so good? Like so many of our best foods, they’re pretty simple, really. Start with amazing, plump, and flavorful peanuts, French fleur de sel (the highly prized, delicate layer of crystals that form atop natural salt ponds in the sun), and a healthy dose of that super-tasty Five Star Black Pepper Blend put together for us by our friends at Épices de Cru using five different sources of superb black peppercorns (Tellicherry Reserve, Mlamala, Rajakumari, Tellicherry Extra Bold, and Shimoga, in case you were curious). Everything is blended together to make one incredibly complex and exceptionally good flavor.
The Salt & Pepper Peanuts are terrific out of hand. Put a bowl or two out with wine, beer, or anything else you’re up for. I can’t guarantee that having them on the table will help your favorite team to win, but they’re great to snack on while you’re watching a bit of football, basketball or whatever other sport tickles your athletic fancy. They’re also great on salads, as well as on ice cream sundaes. And Allison Schraf, long time manager at the Candy Store, raves about how good they are atop chocolate gelato. You can go in a savory direction, by coarsely chopping them and then using some as a coating for fish or pork chops. Sweet, spicy, savory, and super tasty. Life-changing.
You can pick up the Salt & Pepper Peanuts at the Candy Store inside the Coffee Company and at the Deli. Stock up—they are an easy last-minute appetizer and a great way to perk up a salad. And hey, if a big snowstorm comes and you get stuck at home, you’ll have something tasty to put your mind at ease!
Buy a bag
Tucked inside Zingerman’s Coffee Company—just a few steps past the Bakehouse—sits one of Ann Arbor’s best-kept secrets: the Zingerman’s Candy Manufactory. Retail Manager Allison Schraf, a 20-year Zingerman’s veteran with a palate honed at the Deli, shared that one guest referred to the Zingerman’s Southside collection of shops as “the Diagon Alley of Ann Arbor.” As they explained, “You come around the corner, and suddenly all these Zingerman’s businesses have opened up before you!”
The Candy Store is open to all visitors—unlike Diagon Alley, a special shopping area for witches and wizards that humans can’t see—but it’s still pretty magical. Duck inside and you find 600–700 confections from around the world! “Historically,” Allison says, “every neighborhood had its own candy store. Places that specialized, celebrated, and took pride in sweets. Today, those are rare—and that’s part of what makes this place special.”
Allison sources everything from calissons and pâte de fruits from the south of France, to Sicilian and Belgian marzipan, to real licorice from Scandinavia, and more. Nearly everything is available to taste, especially the shop’s 100-plus collection of craft chocolate bars. “It can be daunting,” she says. “But that’s why we’re your confection consultants. It’s not your job to know everything about our products—that’s ours.”
Valentine’s Day highlights will include J. Patrice bonbon boxes, Belgian marzipan hearts, and charming foil-wrapped Italian chocolates. Guests can even build their own gift boxes, combining candy, coffee, and snacks like pretzels, nuts, and Michigan-made beef jerky from the growing provisions line.
Behind the scenes, Production Manager Jamie LeBoeuf is busy dreaming up what’s next for 2026 and beyond. Expect line extensions and small-batch “special makes”—limited-run sweets that create a buzz every time they appear. “Our peanut butter eggs were a huge hit,” Jamie says. “People are still asking for them, and they’ll definitely be back.” The team is also exploring new brittles and seasonal treats to keep the shop lively and full of surprises.
Jamie is equally excited about the future of the chocolate the Candy Manufactory uses for its own line of candy bars, like the original Zzang!® bar, all made by hand in small batches. The team is exploring partnerships with small, origin-based producers—makers who process cacao from start to finish in the same country where it’s grown. “More of the value stays with the farmers and the community,” Jamie explains. “It supports better livelihoods and results in phenomenal chocolate. There’s more to come.”
From thoughtful sourcing to a passion for preserving the magic of a true candy shop, Allison and Jamie are shaping a confectionery experience you won’t find anywhere else. Whether you’re tasting your way through craft chocolates or snagging that perfect gift, the Candy Manufactory invites you to slow down, savor, and discover something sweet.
This originally appeared in the January/February edition of Zingerman’s News—check out the rest of the newsletter!
Single-origin chocolate bars to make a mark on your soul
Six years ago this coming winter, on the weekend of March 4–6, 2020, Tammie and I took a trip to her hometown of San Francisco. I did an evening book event on visioning at the amazing Heath Ceramics. And I attended a really great little artisan chocolate show. Everything, in hindsight, was very strange. We knew that something bad was coming, but no one was sure what. We flew home that Monday, and on Tuesday we held the 5th Annual Jelly Bean Jump Up Dinner, our annual fundraising event for SafeHouse Center, at the Roadhouse. (This winter we’ll have the 11th. The annual calendars are out now for sale!) Then, what we all came to call “the pandemic” really started. That weekend, we did very little business. By Monday, dining rooms closed. You know the rest.
Crazy as the weeks, months, and years that followed were, a number of good things came from that trip. A bunch of people learned our visioning process at Heath. It remains a life-changing process that we can all use now more than ever. And although we were all on pins and needles at the chocolate show, I did find some amazing artisan products. Given everything that went down, it’s not shocking that getting them here took a lot longer than it normally would. A couple of weeks ago, one of those products arrived at our Candy Store: single-origin craft chocolate bars from a small company called 9th & Larkin in San Francisco. It’s a good story and a great chocolate.
Founders Lan Phan and Brian Dusseault share that backstory:
One day, we got curious and wanted to make our own chocolate bars—from scratch—in our small kitchen in San Francisco. We can still vividly remember our first few attempts. Beans, husks, and nibs flying in the kitchen, smoke detectors went off, bits and pieces of chocolate stains were everywhere!
I’m glad they stuck with it through that initial awkwardness. A few years later, they had a line of chocolates so good that I’m happy to include them on the list of folks whose bars I love—Shawn Askinosie, French Broad Chocolate, Marou Chocolate from Vietnam, and more. As of a couple weeks ago, we now have a quartet of awesome artisan, bean-to-bar offerings from 9th & Larkin at the Candy Store. They’re made by an engineer (Brian) and an analyst (Lan), which makes sense in the best possible way: The flavors are so clean and elegant that I started to think of them like a world-class classical quartet. Here’s a description of each 9th & Larkin bar we offer:
Vietnam: A dark 70% bar from the region of Tiền Giang on the central east coast, north of Ben Tre. Lan says, “I love this bar because it was my first single-origin bar, and I am Vietnamese, so I always feel connected when getting to work with beans from my country.” Her tasting notes include “brown sugar, nuts, and cinnamon, with hints of figs and persimmon on a solid chocolate background.” It’s wonderfully smooth, with a delicate and intriguing warm bit of spice notes that linger long in the finish.
Tanzania: A super juicy and fruity dark chocolate with 65% cacao from the Kokoa Kamili Co-op. In Swahili, “Kamili” means “precision,” which is a good reflection of the quality of the beans that 9th & Larkin buy. The co-op is located in the Kilombero Valley, near the center of the country—a bit north and east from the other terrific Tanzanian chocolate we get from the Mababu Co-op and Shawn Askinosie. Beautifully balanced, with some lovely low notes, complemented by hints of dried raisins and cashews. A couple of folks have noticed a snippet of citrus in the background as well.
Colombia: A really great bar with 72% cacao. Super smooth, super juicy, super fruity. Lovely tannins. Terrific long finish. From the Tumaco region, on the very far north coast of the country. Something about the flavor just makes it extra special. Light, elegant, dances a little tango on the tongue. You’re likely to find hints of banana, toffee, and almond butter! This one might be my favorite of the four!
Madagascar: Made with cacao from the island’s Sambirano Valley, on the central-west coast of the country, the premier growing region on Madagascar. Bejofo Estate is there—it’s part of the holdings of the Akesson Estate. Bertil Akesson’s father was a Swedish diplomat in the middle of the 20th century. His work took him to the embassy in Paris, and from there to France’s various African colonies, including Cameroon. He ended up settling with his family on the other side of the continent, farming on Madagascar when the island was governed by the French. The Bejofo Estate, from whence this cacao comes, began farming 100 years ago last year, in 1924. They grow the harder-to-find and exceptionally flavorful Trinitario and Criollo cacao beans! Ripe red fruit is the main flavor I get—lots of the dark cherry that Madagascar cacao is famous for, with a citrus to boot!
Everything about the 9th & Larkin bars is done mindfully and well. Lan and Brian created the elegant wrappers for the bars by rolling a dried cacao pod in paint and then rolling that, in turn, onto paper. That pattern was screen printed for production. A lovely way to work that keeps the package congruous with the cacao from which the bars are made. As Lan says:
Eating chocolate is like traveling. What can be a richer experience than tasting food that is cultivated from the sun, the rain, the soil in that area, and taken great care of by the people who harvest, ferment, dry, pack and ship across the seven seas to all around the world where they are made into chocolate?
Classic confection, influenced by Cuba, handcrafted in Turin
Rocco Disderide, who along with his wife Katherine built the building we now know as the Deli back in 1902, was a lifelong lover of tobacco. He smoked a pipe and also cigars throughout his remarkable 105 years. Tobacco was so close to his heart that even when the Disderides sold the Deli’s building to the Diroff Brothers in 1921 when he was 64, at what might have seemed roughly a reasonable age for “retirement,” Rocco still kept his small cigar store at 125 E. Ann Street in Ann Arbor for many decades more. He did not stock these delicious handmade chocolate cigars from northern Italy, but if we could condense time, I’m pretty sure his young great-great-great-granddaughter, who I had the honor of meeting this year, would have been very happy if he had!
The origin story of these cigars goes back to the time before Rocco and Katherine Disderide arrived in Ann Arbor with their three daughters. In the town of Turin, in 1878—about 100 miles from where a then 19-year-old Rocco would still at the time have been living near Genoa—a 20-year-old Torinese by the name of Silviano Venchi scraped together all the cash he could come up with to buy two bronze cauldrons. Venchi’s vision was to start a chocolate shop. Back in that era, chocolate in finished form for eating in this way was relatively new, and cacao consumption was all the rage amongst the European cognoscenti. Young Silviano Venchi was very much caught up in the buzz around cacao beans and was willing to risk all he had to make his dreams come true.
A few years into his chocolate work, Venchi made a creative contribution of his own to the confectionary world when he came up with the idea to craft what came to be called “nougatine.” Made from chopped caramelized hazelnuts coated in dark chocolate, it’s essentially a different way of bringing together two of the main products of Torino’s culinary scene—ancient Italian hazelnuts, and the relatively novel chocolate which had come not all that long before from the western hemisphere. Soon, Venchi had created what came to be called “the most elegant chocolate shop in Piedmont.” The company grew from there and has long been one of Italy’s most admired and inspired chocolate makers. If you go to Turin with Zingerman’s Food Tours, you will see Venchi’s confectionery and gelato shops all over the city!
The history of the Venchi chocolate cigars dates to the 1960s when Pietro Cussino, then one of the owners of the company, took a trip to the Caribbean. He was driven by his passion for finding the finest cacao and the best rum to enhance the quality of Venchi’s already exquisite chocolates. Natural Law #8 reminds us, “To get to greatness you’ve got to keep getting better, all the time!” And Sr. Cussino was practicing it. When he arrived in Cuba, he quickly became enamored of the handcrafting that went into the artisan Cuban cigars. In the spirit of nearly all great creative work, Cussino combined these two previously unconnected crafts—artisan cigars with the artisan chocolate making for which Venchi had by then already been famous for nearly 90 years.
Here in 2024, Venchi’s chocolate cigars are still produced and wrapped, beautifully, by hand. We have four types at the Candy Store (inside the Coffee Company):
- The classic original Venchi Chocolate Cigar – Dense and delicious cocoa paste, hand-covered in a double layer of dark chocolate, then foil-wrapped to look almost exactly like a handmade cigar.
- The powerfully good Pistachio Cigar – These have a delicious filling of white chocolate and pistachio paste that’s mixed with chopped pistachios, almonds, and raw cane sugar. A double layer of 60% dark chocolate on the outside!
- Venchi’s signature Nougatine – Silviano Venchi’s original, late 19th century, confectionery creation is at the heart of this one. Dark cocoa paste is mixed with PGI (protected by law) Piedmont hazelnuts that are ground into a coarse confection that’s then laced with caramel chips. The nougatine center is coated with a double layer of chocolate and, again, hand-wrapped in foil in the style of a fine cigar.
- The terrific Orange and Chocolate – Dark chocolate cigars, filled with milk chocolate combined with cocoa paste and seasoned with candied orange peel. The cigar is covered with a double layer of milk and dark 56% chocolate to preserve the aroma to the fullest.
The Venchi cigars are great for any gift for anyone who likes chocolate! You can slice a small bit off to enjoy or serve the cigar whole. They really do look like a fancy cigar—and they taste terrific!
Terrific, toasted cashews in a lovely sheet of caramelized sugar
A tasty treat if you’re in the mood for something sort of sweet, a touch savory, and mostly, just really, really good. It’s been a bit of a surprise sleeper on the Candy Manufactory scene—it showed up on the shelves 10 years or so ago without a lot of fanfare. And then one day, it started to pop up—and kept on popping up—on our customer compliment report week after week. The Cashew Brittle is done with a lot of slow cooking to carefully, patiently, and maybe poetically, caramelize the sugar—with a bit of butter and a pinch of sea salt—as we also do with our already pretty famous peanut brittle.
While pecans are native to North America, cashews came originally from Brazil. The English name “cashew” comes from the Portuguese, caju. The tree is a tropical evergreen that can grow as tall as a four or five-story building. It was brought to India in the middle of the 16th century by Portuguese sailors working the spice routes. Wherever it’s grown, the nut, or more formally, seed, actually grows on the outside of the fruit, which, in English, are known as “cashew apples.”
The Candy Manufactory’s Cashew Brittle is both beautiful and delicious. A dark amber-colored confection, studded with sections of straw yellow, gently toasted, cashew nuts. Put it out on a plate for folks to nibble on for a snack, after a meal, or with morning coffee. The Cashew Brittle pairs really well with cheese. It’s super delicious with Parmigiano Reggiano—I had some on a plate with small, broken-up pieces of the cashew brittle—and it was a huge hit! It’d be terrific with the Street Ched I wrote about last week from Cincinnati. The Cashew Brittle is, of course, also a superb snack or something to stick in your pocket if you’re getting on a plane for a long flight or into a car for a long drive. And, oh yeah, I almost forgot—Cashew Brittle also comes covered with dark chocolate!
It’s great, too, coarsely chopped and tossed onto a salad—sort of like you’d use croutons. Right now the Roadhouse has its amazing fresh arugula, barrel-aged Greek feta, apple, and cashew brittle salad on the monthly specials menu. It’s a terrific coming together of savory and sweet, crunchy and creamy, nutty and nice! Pretty certainly, worthy of a poem. If you’re inspired to write one, send it my way!
Come by the Candy Store, the Roadhouse, or the Deli to pick some up.
Buy a bag of brittle
The Scandinavian candy classic
comes to Zingerman’s Southside
Lakrids is the story of a Dane, a man who had the courage and insight to make a small, but meaningful change. Instead of looking at licorice as the mass-market item it has become over the years, Johan Bulow believed he could create an artisan offering that would be wonderfully special. Bulow began his work on the island of Bornholm in 2007. When he started hand-cooking and selling his artisan licorice, the response was surprising. His small shop was swamped! Tourists were particularly drawn to this display of Danish tradition. In the process, a whole new set of licorice lovers was apparently born.
We have nearly a dozen different Lakrids’ offerings on the Candy Store shelves. All are excellent. In the moment, here are three that are high on my list!
Lakrids A
My favorite is probably this one. Bulow’s original offering, it’s dark black artisan licorice coated in milk chocolate and then dusted with cocoa powder. It’s got the complexity, balance, and finish that for us, at Zingerman’s, defines full flavor. (See “A Taste of Zingerman’s Food Philosophy” for much more on that!) Subtly sweet, a lovely touch of cocoa-ness, a creaminess on the tongue, and a liveliness that fills the mouth in a marvelous way.
Lakrids #2
Although salted licorice like this is barely known in the U.S., it’s by far one of the most popular confections you can find in Scandinavia. Over there, pretty much every kid grows up eating it, and most Scandinavian expats I encounter still seem to be crazy about it. Bulow says, “When your lips close around a bite of this strong, salty liquorice, the potent Nordic taste explodes on your tongue, bringing up associations of the sea, tar, bonfire smoke, and the scent of resin.” I’ve heard from whiskey drinkers that it’s a great pairing with well-aged bourbon or scotch.
Lakrids #3
If you’re ready for artisan red licorice, it might be time to let Twizzlers a back seat and give this red licorice that’s made from fresh fruit juice a shot. (I’m sorry to say, Twizzlers actually have no licorice in them at all!) These are colored and flavored with a blend of blackcurrant, cranberry, lemon, and strawberry juices. Delicious! Sweet! Superb!
Keep some of these delicious Danish licorice treats on your desk, stick ’em in your toolbox and take them to a job site, pack them for the plane, or pop a jar in your glovebox. They’re just right for moments when you need a little something to shake your mind back awake or help yourself get re-centered.
Jerry Garcia once said of the Grateful Dead, “Our audience is like people who like licorice. Not everybody likes licorice, but the people who like licorice really like licorice.” Whether you like the Dead or not, you might want to make your way over to the Candy Store. Ask for a sample of this delightful Danish treat!! It could be the beginning of a long and loving relationship!