Is Nine O’clock In The Morning Too Early For Chocolate? Not To A Chocoholic

By Fran Folsom

I am a chocoholic. Wherever I travel I search out chocolate shops. My favorite hunting ground is New England, where I have come across many shops that I like, but, these three shops stand out in my mind for the imagination, creativity and heavenly taste that goes into their magnificent confections.

Burdick’s Chocolates

This Harvard Square shop is my weekly haunt, I love the tiny ganache filled chocolate mice, my favorite way to eat them is by holding them by their satin tails, dangling them over my mouth and nibbling from their almond ears up.

Nestled up against the mice in the gleaming glass cases are the chocolate penguins, looking dapper in their dark and white chocolate tuxedos. Burdick’s has two locations; Harvard Square Cambridge and their signature place in Walpole New Hampshire which not only has the chocolate shop, but also an award winning French restaurant serving wonderful cuisine; truffle, fennel and apple salad, roast duckling or sea scallops with black tea and caviar.

Monica’s Chocolates

“Have you ever had chocolates made with Peruvian plums?” I asked my friend Fred as we walked into Monica’s Chocolate Shop in Lubec Maine early one morning. Fred’s lament of “9 o’clock in the morning is to early for chocolate,” did nothing to deter me from my mission; starting my day with a healthy dose of chocolate. “It’s never to early for chocolate” I told him.

Owner Monica Elliott, a native of Peru, emigrated to Lubec in 1999 bringing with her recipes for Peruvian caramel and chocolate. Monica makes all her chocolates by hand in her beautifully decorated shop.

Fred stopped complaining about the time of day after he devoured a raspberry wine truffle followed by a Sicilian marzipan covered with a bittersweet chocolate shell. 

I went straight for the jugular, a dark chocolate bonbon, biting into a succulent plum surrounded by a rich Peruvian caramel, I rolled my eyes towards heaven. After that I moved on to a pecan filled truffle, and finished off with a cameo chocolate mint.

Lake Champlain Chocolates

To me, no visit to Burlington Vermont is complete without a stop at Lake Champlain Chocolates. The company was started here twenty-five years ago by Jim Lampman, a restaurant entrepreneur, who used to give gifts of expensive chocolates to his restaurant staff. 

One day his chef confessed that the chocolates were terrible, and Lampman challenged him to make something better. And, so he did. What the chef came up with were truffles made with dark Belgian chocolate and Vermont butter and cream. From those first truffles a chocolate factory was born.

The truffles, in flavors of cappuccino, vanilla malt, raspberry, and champagne, are fantastic. Much as I love the truffles, I would have to say the mainstay of Lake Champlain Chocolates is their Five Star Bars, dense chunky bars packed with fruits and nuts covered in dark Belgian chocolate.

How good are the Five Star Bars? Well, Vogue magazine has named them “the ultimate chocolate bar” and they were featured in Steve Almond’s book Candyfreak.

A visit to any of these shops is what I imagine being turned loose in Willie Wonka’s chocolate factory would be like.

If You Go
Burdick’s Chocolates   1-603-756-2882
47 Main Street   
Walpole, New Hampshire 03608         
www.burdickchocolate.com

52D Brattle Street 
1-617-491-4340
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138

Monica’s Chocolates                                       
1-207-733-4500, 1-866-952-4500
56 Pleasant Street        
Lubec Maine 04652                                    
www.monicaschocolates.com

Lake Champlain Chocolates                
1-800-465-5909
750 Pine Street            
Burlington Vermont 05401
www.lakechamplainchocolates.com

courtesy of Burdick’s Chocolates, Monica’s Chocolates, and Lake Champlain Chocolates.