After dinner at a friend\u2019s house recently, she laid out a small plate with pieces of candy. They were dark chocolate peppermint creams made by Summerdown, a company based in Hampshire, England. Their tagline sounds like it was copied straight out of a Midwich Cuckoos\u2019 chapter: \u201cWe are the peppermint people.\u201d The Summerdown cult also makes versions of their mints in the shape or form of dominoes, crisps, fondants and truffles. Like Mr. Creosote, I only required one thin mint to satisfy my sweet tooth.<\/p>\n
On another occasion, my friend handed me a bag of Petite LaFleur\u2019s signature salted dark chocolate honeycomb candy. She\u2019d found both of these confections at Rockridge Market Hall. The \u201cmarket\u201d section of the hall has continued to evolve over time into an haute bourgeois version of Cost Plus, which has been rebranded as World Market since my last visit there. Most of the \u201cworld\u201d represented at the College Avenue gourmet grocery store hails from Europe. Its shelves are stacked high with Italian panettone and biscotti, French teas, British jams and curds, Greek olives and Scandinavian tinned fish.<\/p>\n
Petite LaFleur is an exception to the European rule at Market Hall Foods. Suzanne LaFleur\u2019s chocolate business is based in Berkeley. A former pastry chef, LaFleur launched her own company after taking a job as a production manager at Dandelion Chocolate in San Francisco. \u201cThe whole point of getting that job was because I wanted to learn [about chocolate] manufacturing from a raw agricultural product into a product for the customer,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
As the sole proprietor and chocolatier at Petite LaFleur, she makes two products, a golden popcorn bark and the aforementioned honeycomb candy\u2014which is actually made out of honey and not honeycomb. \u201cIt\u2019s called honeycomb because of the texture,\u201d LaFleur said. \u201cBasically, the \u2018honeycomb\u2019 I make is an aerated honey toffee.\u201d It has a caramel-like quality on the tongue, but the floral and earthy flavor is informed by the activity of bees as they travel through the air and land on soft beds of pollen.<\/p>\n
LaFleur sources her honey from Khaled Almaghafi\u2019s Bee Healthy Honey Shop in Oakland. He\u2019s made and distributed honey in the Bay Area since 1992. His social media account swarms with images of himself draped in blankets of busy bees jauntily strolling around his face and torso. Almaghafi clearly does not suffer from apiphobia. When she picks up her five-gallon order of honey, LaFleur noted that he\u2019s rarely at the shop. \u201cHe\u2019s often out in the field removing wasp\u2019s nests and moving bee colonies, things like that,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
While working as a pastry chef, LaFleur made plated desserts with honeycomb as a component \u201cto add a little crunch.\u201d But when a friend of hers handed her a Crunchie bar from the U.K., she had an inspirational \u201caha\u201d moment. \u201cIt\u2019s a honeycomb bar, but it\u2019s very sweet,\u201d LaFleur said.<\/p>\n
Instead of actual honey, the Crunchie bar is made with golden syrup. To make her own version, she experimented with the flavor, adding in other notes such as Maldon sea salt. \u201cI try to caramelize the honey so, hopefully if I\u2019ve done my job right, you might have very slight bitter notes,\u201d she said. \u201cI wanted you to be able to eat it without your palate getting bored.\u201d<\/p>\n
When it comes to the process of tempering chocolate so it \u201cbreaks well with a snap,\u201d LaFleur said that milk, dark and white chocolates all require different temperatures to achieve a shiny finish. Otherwise, they won\u2019t solidify. \u201cIf you\u2019re doing it by hand, you melt chocolate to a higher temperature than you want to actually use in the final product,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Then she adds unmelted chocolate to cool it down. \u201cWithout getting super technical, you\u2019re trying to align the crystals so they stay emulsified,\u201d she said. Tempering preserves the layers of honeycomb while also preventing the candy from easily melting in the hand.<\/p>\n
The Petite LaFleur production center is set up in the Berkeley Kitchens building, the same one that houses Third Culture Bakery, Batter Bakery and La Noisette Sweets. And, until it closed at the end of 2025\u2014sob\u2014Kelsie Kerr\u2019s Standard Fare operated out of it for more than a decade. \u201cI love this building,\u201d LaFleur said. \u201cIt\u2019s really cool to be amongst a community of other kitchens, because if you forget something you can go down the hall for support.\u201dLaFleur doesn\u2019t have retail hours because she\u2019s in production mode there. Pickups can be arranged online, but she\u2019s usually cranking things out for her wholesale accounts. \u201cI also sell on my website and on Etsy,\u201d she said. Petite LaFleur products are also available at Oaktown Spice Shop, Berkeley Bowl, Piedmont Grocery and Blue Willow Tea.<\/p>\n