Fresh Squeezed Inspiration: Lemon Confections 4 Ways

 

A quintessential spring and summer flavor, lemon and other citrus fruits are experiencing increased popularity as a source of immune-boosting vitamin C. As the temperature heats up, give your product lineup a refresh with these fresh-squeezed lemon confections.

Lemon Twist Bark

Made with a layer of dark chocolate, topped with lemon white chocolate, then sprinkled with crushed lemon candies and lemon-twist sea salt. A drizzle of dark chocolate is the finishing touch to this sweet, salty and sour bark from Olympian Candies.

Lemon Buttercream

Take it from RCI member Winans Chocolates + Coffees of Piqua, Ohio and add your favorite lemon flavor for a fresh spin on your traditional buttercream recipe. To create even more interest, Winans named the product "Cioccolato de Limone." Bellissimo!

Lemon Blueberry Caramel

Lemon and caramel may not be the most expected flavor combinations, but after Walker’s Chocolates of Burlington, Ontario won best new piece at Candy Clinic in 2015 for their Lemon Blueberry Caramel, we’d say it’s a winner! The flavor is achieved by adding lemon oil and dried blueberries to their caramel recipe.

Photo credit: Sconza Chocolates

Lemoncello Chocolate Almonds^®
Inspired by the Italian liqueur, this popular panned treat combines roasted almonds with a coating of white chocolate and lemon cream. Although this product is available for private label from Sconza Chocolates, you can achieve your own lemoncello-inspired treats by adding a hint of vanilla to an existing lemon-flavored confection.

Loyal customers can be your most powerful sales tool. Launching new products that capture customers’ interest and attention is a great way to remain relevant and encourage customers to promote your business through word of mouth. Promoting your new products on social media makes it easy for your followers to share your content within their circles.

Crave more? Click here to subscribe and start receiving weekly tips, like this, delivered straight to your email inbox. RCI's blog is just one of the many resources we offer to help candy makers refine their craft and build upon their business and marketing practices. Follow us on Facebook for even more sweet inspiration.

Not a member? Click here to learn how RCI can help you build your sweet business.

EGGS-tra Easter Egg Inspiration

How do you like your eggs?

And by that, we mean Easter eggs? April 17 will be here before we know it, but there’s still time to introduce some fresh ideas when it comes to chocolate Easter eggs. This week, we’re featuring EGGS-tra Easter eggs to help spark your imagination.

Photo credit: Sarris Candies

Smash Eggs
Say “goodbye” to hot cocoa bombs and “hello” to smash eggs! Many chocolatiers already have a hollow Easter egg mould in their toolkit, but what do you fill it with? Depending on the size of your mould, you may want to fill your smash egg with jelly beans, miniature foiled chocolates, truffles, chocolate-covered mini pretzels, chocolate-covered nuts and/or berries, etc. 

Photo credits: Williams Sonoma, Art CoCo/Simply Chocolate 

Some other unique ideas we’ve seen are eggs filled with tiny white chocolate chicks (cue “aww!”) and the more unexpected mini chocolate dinosaurs (cue gasp!). For even more dramatic effect, don’t forget the sprinkles, which will undoubtedly go flying upon impact between the egg and the mallet!

We love how RCI members Anderson’s Candies and Sarris Candies displayed their colorful smash eggs on their Facebook pages!

Photo credit: Aldi’s Curious Inventions Eggs

Easter Egg Overflow
There’s no surprise what you’re getting with Aldi’s Curious Inventions Easter Eggs! These Easter eggs are so packed with flavor, the contents are bursting through the chocolate shell. Although this does create a nice visual effect, the flavor combinations are just as intriguing.

There are six different varieties, such as banoffee (banana, caramel and butterscotch flavors); salted pretzel and orange; cookies and cream; popping candy; strawberries and cream (with real freeze-dried strawberry pieces) and the Billionaire egg, featuring chocolate and caramel fudge, white chocolate covered cookies and honeycomb candy.

Photo credits: Little Sugar Snaps, Chocolate Pizza Company

Easter Egg Bark
Who says Easter eggs have to be three-dimensional? Here’s two examples of eggs that, despite their shape, don’t fall flat on the delivery!

It’s eggs-on-eggs-on-eggs with this chocolate bark by the LittleSugar Snaps blog that features loads of popular egg-themed candies. We love the swirls of color on the eggs by the Chocolate Pizza Company, plus the addition of a beautifully scribed name is an extra special touch.

Photo credits: Waitrose, Melt London

Fruity Follies

These fruity lookalikes will have you doing a double-take! With a little imagination, Melt London transforms a standard three-dimensional egg into a strawberry filled with a chocolate strawberry cake.

Fruit lovers will undoubtedly fall for these lifelike pomegranate and lemon-shaped moulded chocolates sold by British grocery retailer, Waitrose. The pomegranate is made with caramelized white chocolate and real pomegranate, while the lemon version features white chocolate infused with zesty lemon flavors.

 

Photo credits: Cacao Australia, Roberto Cavalli

Animal-Themed Eggs
Take a walk on the wild side when pulling your inspiration from this barnyard bunch by Australian chocolatier, Cacao or try a more abstract approach with the animal prints created for fashion designer Roberto Cavalli’s Italian coffee shop.

No matter if you like your chocolate Easter eggs more traditional or if you prefer a more unconventional approach, we hope this week’s post offers plenty of sweet inspiration this season!

Crave more? Click here to subscribe and start receiving weekly tips, like this, delivered straight to your email inbox. RCI's blog is just one of the many resources we offer to help candy makers refine their craft and build upon their business and marketing practices. Follow us on Facebook for even more sweet inspiration.

Not a member? Click here to learn how RCI can help you build your sweet business.

Celebrate St. Patty’s Day with Irish Cream Caramels Recipe

This week’s sweet idea is proof that you don’t need rainbows and green food coloring to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day in proper fashion. Transform your caramel recipe by adding a splash or two of Irish cream flavor to add familiar hints of cocoa and vanilla found in Baileys^® Irish Cream liqueur.  

Photo credit: LorAnn Oils

Take your caramel up a notch with this recipe for Irish Cream Caramels from LorAnn Oils. Enjoy layers of indulgent sweetness with drizzles of white and milk chocolate, followed by sprinkles of crushed toffee pieces—yes, please! 

If you fancy plenty of rainbows and green food coloring for your St. Patty’s Day celebration, we’ve got you covered! Click here for 5 sweet treats for St. Patrick’s Day. Share your favorite St. Patty’s inspired treats on RCI’s Facebook page.

Crave more? Click here to subscribe and start receiving weekly tips, like this, delivered straight to your email inbox. RCI's blog is just one of the many resources we offer to help candy makers refine their craft and build upon their business and marketing practices. Follow us on Facebook for even more sweet inspiration.

Not a member? Click here to learn how RCI can help you build your sweet business.

2 Ways to Spread Kindness this Spring

Even in the midst of a global pandemic, people found ways to spread joy and lift up their neighbors through acts of kindness. Even the smallest gestures made a big impact to those affected the most.

In many cases things seem to moving in a positive direction, yet, there are still many industries and individuals experiencing new or continued challenges with staffing and material shortages, burnout and etc.

With the arrival of spring this month and Easter around the corner, consider ways to create opportunities for members of your community to show kindness to others. Here’s some examples of ways RCI members are helping spreading joy through sweetness for you to use as inspiration.

Credit: O’Shea’s Candies

Easter Basket Giveaway for Senior Citizens

For Easter of 2020, O’Shea’s Candies hosted an Easter basket giveaway for senior citizens living in nursing homes. Social media followers were invited to post the name of someone at a nursing home who would enjoy an Easter basket from O’Shea’s. Five winners were chosen at random and baskets of treats were delivered or shipped directly to the winners’ nursing homes across the United States.

You’re never too old for an Easter basket! This sweet contest is a way to give some much-deserved love to the elderly in your community.

Credit: Aigner Chocolates

Flower Power Artwork Exchange

In exchange for hand-drawn artwork by area youth, Aigner Chocolates offered free chocolate lollipops. In 2020, Aigner requested drawings of rainbows to cheer up front-line workers at their local hospital. This year, they tasked local kids and schools to draw colorful flowers for children and staff in the pediatric units at two local hospitals. Resulting in just over 1,500 drawings (more than double their goal), there’s no doubt the campaign made a significant impact to all the participants. Their efforts were so successful, Aigner Chocolates was highlighted on national ABC News. Click here to view the news story.

The success of a campaign like this relies on good word of mouth. Take advantage of all the channels available to your business to help spread the word. This may include social media, e-newsletter, in-store signage, press releases to your local media, etc. If your campaign involves kids, share your initiative with your local schools and ask them to help spread the word. If you team up with a hospital, like Aigner Chocolates did, they too may be able to spread the word.

“I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the water to create many ripples.”

-       - Mother Teresa

With so many people in need of a little extra love and care, in addition to those with crucial roles in our community experiencing burnout due to continued challenges caused by the pandemic, consider what role your business can play to lift up your community and make its members feel appreciated and cared for. 

Crave more? Click here to subscribe and start receiving weekly tips, like this, delivered straight to your email inbox. RCI's blog is just one of the many resources we offer to help candy makers refine their craft and build upon their business and marketing practices. Follow us on Facebook for even more sweet inspiration.

Not a member? Click here to learn how RCI can help you build your sweet business.