Is It Better With One? Or Two?

My twelve-year hobby with chocolate has gone through a few turns, almost always arcing upward in complexity to the point where “the chocolate room” downstairs could probably compete with a small chocolate shop in terms of the equipment on offer. There’s a tempering machine, a melangeur for producing bean-to-bar chocolate (in itself not something that you’d probably find in many shops…), and of course molds. So many molds. But where do you go from here?

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Obviously, you get your own custom-mold made. Above is the test run from a prototype that CCFX have run off for me, before final production begins with plenty of time before Christmas. The mold itself is a direct replacement for the classic Cadbury miniature, and will of course play a big part in my upcoming Roses 2020 assortment, as well as my recent acquisition of a proper Cadbury money bank (though we’re not going to be limiting ourselves to just milk and dark chocolate. Oh no). The recessed “FESTIVE!” is supplied by Rian Hughes’ Blackcurrant font. And you thought it’d be Helvetica. Sometimes I just like to have fun!

Anyway, as if on cue, the leaves have started falling as Summer officially ends in America with the Labo(u)r Day Weekend. Which has also seen a drought of Diet Coke cans that I haven’t seen for a long, long time. Aisles full of regular Coke, Dr. Pepper, and the Devil’s Own Creation1, but a complete lack of silver boxes. And we checked multiple Krogers! Big and little! A nightmare of imaginable proportions! I only have about 40 cans left in the house!Absolutely terrible scenes as we head into Autumn.

But! We did have a little celebration this weekend; COVID disrupted any plans of a big party, but we gave Tammy a happy birthday with a roast dinner, a sugar-free funfetti cake, and a fun phone-enhanced boardgame. Quiet, but nice. Plus, in a fortnight, we will re-run the celebration, except this time I can use sugar, so it will become Part 1 of the Winter’s insane desserts trilogy. It’s going to go great2


  1. No, Pepsi is not okay. ↩︎

  2. We’re probably coming up to around 50 or so desserts total so far, and nobody knows about my secret extra lists right now… ↩︎