While in Logan we also had a tour of the Bluebird Candy Co. They give tours every week day at 11:00 AM. Yeah! Chocolates!
Here are all the different chocolates ready to be packed into boxes:
Here are all the different chocolates ready to be packed into boxes:
The packaging/shipping room:
This is where they make the centers:
Here is macaroon center being cooked:
This table has a water heating/cooling system so it can be hot or cold depending on what is needed.
This thing is for mixing cream centers:
This gadget slices the centers:
Here are the chocolate melting vats which keep the chocolate at a constant perfect temperature.
This machine is used for coating chocolates. They use it for their bars, and all the rest of their chocolates are hand-dipped. They told us you can tell if a chocolate has been coated by machine or hand by the thickness of the chocolate. Machines create a coating the thickness of the chocolate coating on a Snicker's bar and hand coatings are much thicker.
These ladies are dipping the chocolates.
They told us that they put water in their chocolate which makes it thicker and hold it's shape better. I was surprised because I have always understood that you never allow any water to get into the chocolate or it will seize (clump up). They said that is true for lesser quality chocolate but they use a very high quality chocolate (Guittard).
They also make molded chocolates, and check out these shapes! Have you ever seen chocolate tools before? That hammer is solid chocolate.
We were each given a sample, but of course we had to buy some, too. (Tours are great marketing!)
It was a very interesting, informative, and rewarding (yummy!) tour--they showed us pretty much everything about their process. (Except recipes. I would sure love a good center recipe.) And the ladies were very nice. I also love their logo and box design. It's classy vintage, their original logo, I imagine. You can see it a little on their website, here.
