Region’s custom candy and confections offer sweet holiday dreams
Ranen Toosley has learned a steady hand during the holidays when mastering his art of pretzel dipping.
“The key is you want it to be pretzel dipping and not pretzel dripping,” said Toosley, of Crown Point, who has worked at The Sweet Tooth in Munster for four years.
“We have our hand-dipped pretzels in a variety of chocolates, like milk, white and dark, throughout the year. But this time of year, they are decorated with lots of added touches, ranging from everything like sprinkles, colored sugars and crushed Oreos to chips of real peppermint sticks and other special garnishes, and we sell them for $1.29.”
Toosley is also an admitted kitchen pro at chocolate dipping a chilled favorite holiday custom offering found in the shop’s cooler section. Chunks of cheesecake skewered on wooden sticks are popular and are priced at $2.99.
There is still one confection popular this time of year which Toosley leaves to his candy-making colleagues.
“I haven’t mastered making our candy acorns, which we sell for 50 cents each,” he said.
“They are simple — just a chocolate Kiss turned upside down and attached to a mini vanilla wafer cookie as the cap — but they take some skill, because the cookie can easily break in the process. But once complete, they are delicious.”
The Sweet Tooth
Based on its size and yearly expansion with international sales around the globe, it would seem even Santa Claus might depend on Albanese Candy Factory and Outlet Store in Merrillville if ever short on sweets to fill his sleigh. It’s 18 years old, and offers more than 2,000 kinds of confectionary items sold, with all of the chocolate-covered items and gummy candies made in the adjoining plant.
Guests are greeted in the entrance foyer of the factory with the sights, sounds and aroma of a 32-foot-tall chocolate waterfall fountain. December and February rank as busiest times of the year and some of the unusual sizeable selections created at the shop include a 5-pound gummy bear, a 10-pound chocolate and pecan turtle patty and 2-foot-long, scaly gummy snake.
But for Christmas, it’s the gummy white snowman shapes and red and green Christmas trees, all glistening with sprinkled sugar, that are the top demand at $3.49 per pound.
Albanese Candy Factory
Gayle Van Sessen of Crown Point has owned and operated the Candy Cove candy and chocolate shop in the lower level of the historic Lake County Courthouse in Crown Point for 31 years, since her business first opened in its same location on Feb. 16, 1988.
The shop is nestled with the boutiques and businesses in the courthouse catacombs below the museum and ballroom located above on the main floors, and customers tell Van Sessen just the floating aroma from her store puts them in a joyful holiday spirit. Since gumdrops have become a signature nostalgic sweet from ages past, Van Sessen sells them in all shapes, flavors and sizes by bulk for $7.95 for as many as can be fit into an old-fashioned glass Mason pint canning jar.
Candy Cove and Courthouse Shops
Alyssa Belko of Valparaiso has been spending much of this holiday shopping month telling customers she’s out of “Rudolph’s Noses.” Her reference to the famous red snout of the tiniest of reindeer is candy code at South Bend Chocolate Company at their downtown Valparaiso location.
“What we call ‘Rudolph Noses’ are really red shiny candy-coated malt balls that would normally sell for $7.99 for an eight-ounce bag, but we don’t have any more right now,” Belko laments.
“They probably still have them at the many outlet locations in South Bend, though.”
But what Belko does have plenty of, and also sells plenty of during December, is South Bend Chocolate Co.’s hot chocolate.
“Our hot chocolate is so good and it’s only made here in our attached café for sale,” Belko said.
“We don’t sell any powder mixes, so people buy gift cards to give to family and friends to come in and get their own warm mug of happiness.”
What is sold over the counter by Belko, who has worked at the shop for four years, includes the artistic and appetizing molded chocolate creations sold only at Christmas time in the likeness of Santa.
“We have a 14-ounce hollow chocolate Santa that is sold for $11.99, or if you want to really go big, we have the ‘better-be-good-all-year-long’ solid chocolate 60-pound Santa to nibble until next Christmas, which is available for $499.”
South Bend
Chocolate Co.
In Clement Clarke Moore’s famous 1823 poem “Twas the Night Before Christmas,” a verse describes children “nestled all snug in their beds, while visions of sugar plums danced in their heads.” Though many know the verse, it’s not likely many have ever sampled a “sugar plum.”
Gayety’s Chocolates and Ice Cream in Lansing not only boasts a 100-year-old candy shop history, but it is also the closest variation to holiday “sugar plum” in Chicagoland and northwest Indiana.
“We have our chocolate-dipped dried plums for $24.95 a pound, and this is the time of the year when we sell the most,” said Jayla Taylor, who works at the candy counter at Gayety’s, which transferred ownership in 2018 but continues the same sweet traditions.
While the previous ownership had expanded to now closed locations in Schererville and Hammond at the Horseshoe Casino, new owner Laurene Lamanski runs the only remaining location in Lansing as the flagship shop.
In addition to the ice cream claim-to-fame status, $9 pint jars of Gayety’s signature homemade hot fudge are also popular under Christmas trees and then in kitchen cupboards for the holidays.
Gayety’s Chocolates
and Ice Cream
PREVIOUS ARTICLE
