Sweet treats

FILLED with giant chocolate towers, fairytale castles and edible flying saucers, Chocolini’s is like walking into the world of Willy Wonka.

The shop, based in Saltburn, specialises in handmade chocolate, selling everything from rum truffles to chocolate castles, chocolate cars, a chocolate CD (with a customised label and playlist), chocolate fish and chips and a giant chocolate bubble filled with truffles. They even have a range where you can eat the box in true Augustus Gloop style.

The business was started by Elaine Dyer and former nurse Carol Holdsworth in January 2006. Elaine was a civil servant and was a silent partner at first, while Carol took charge of the financial side and accounts.

It wasn’t until the business began to get more successful and they had to move to bigger premises in 2008 that Elaine decided to quit her job in the civil service and retrain as a chocolatier. They now employ six staff and Elaine makes the chocolate at a small factory two minutes up the road.

“My two favourite subjects in the world are art and cookery, so it was a good combination,” she says. “We used to buy the chocolate from local suppliers, but we wanted to expand the range so we decided to make it ourselves. It’s quite a bizarre medium to work with because you have to get the temperature and humidity exactly right and if it hasn’t been mixed or stirred correctly, it can discolour.

Patience is the key.”

The best-selling item is the chocolate stiletto shoe. “We sell more of those than anything,” says Elaine.

“We also sell a lot of chocolate handbags.

A lot of our regulars have had the shoe and were looking for something different so we launched the handbag.”

Prices vary from 36p for a single chocolate to £160 for an individual display. The stiletto shoe is £7.95, a handbag £9.95. Carol and Elaine have had all sorts of requests since they started making chocolate from a chocolate truck (for a Morrisons truck driver) to a giant muffin stuffed with marshmallows. There have been chocolate cats, chocolate dogs, chocolate pizza, an aeroplane, champagne bottle, a treasure ship and a Ferrari.

The most unusual was an eightinch chocolate penis, painted gold, for a hen do in Blackpool. “People have had messages sealed in chocolate hearts before, like ‘will you marry me?’,” says Elaine. “Sometimes we don’t get to read it, they can slip the message in a small bag and seal it themselves.”

Chocolini’s caters for a lot of birthdays, anniversaries and weddings (the six-inch chocolate champagne glass being a particular favourite).

“We had a man once who was celebrating his wedding anniversary.

He brought in an expensive diamond ring and asked if we could seal it inside a chocolate heart for his wife,” says Elaine. “She had to break the heart to find it and was delighted.”

The most difficult things to make are the displays because they are so fragile. They did a big flower display recently for the WI with some petals that were less than 1cm long. “We’ve got a chocolate horse rearing and its front legs come off all the time,” says Elaine. “Sometimes, I’ll take it to the shop and as soon as I get back, the phone rings and they say, ‘The legs have fallen off, quick, we need another’.

We like to keep the chocolate as fresh as possible, so we try to make it as late as we can, but leaving enough time to rectify it if it all goes wrong.”

The longest she has spent on a cake was for her mum and dad’s diamond wedding which took the best part of five days.

Inevitably, one of the perks of the job is having chocolate on tap.

“It’s quality control,” says Elaine, who has a tasting session three times a day. “I try to resist having chocolate when I get home.”

Both dedicated Middlesbrough fans and season ticket holders, Elaine and Carol often combine away matches in Europe with a spot of research, picking out towns with the most chocolate shops.

While they haven’t branched out into marmite as an added ingredient like some chocolatiers, they have experimented with chilli. “Strawberry jam and chocolate was the worst flavour, no body liked that,” says Elaine. They now plan to expand into cakes in conjunction with Whitby Speciality Cakes and are extending the ice cream range with the launch of the chipwich, a chocolate chip cookie ice cream sandwich.

“I thought I’d be in the civil service until I was 60, I never imagined I’d be doing something like this,” Elaine says. “It takes some patience, but I find it very relaxing.”

• Chocolini’s, 3 Windsor Road, Saltburn. Tel: 01287-626141 or visit chocolinis.co.uk