Here is a sneak peak at a few fun things we have to show you from our Artisan Ornament Collection!
The newest products are not yet online and some are fragile enough that they cannot be shipped, so you’ll need to stop in the shop to check them out.
Print this picture of Estella and Leona, as in the sweet women behind the Stella Leona name, bring it to the shop during Holiday Open House and receive a free Stella Leona mug while supplies last.
See you there!!!
It’s almost here! You may not be getting ready for the holidays yet, but we most certainly are! We’ve been working like crazy to get ready to share gift ideas and new chocolates we created just for this holiday season.
Tomorrow kicks off our three day Holiday Open House. We will be open Thursday and Friday 9-5 and Saturday 9-noon.
Stop by to have a coffee or one of our specialty hot chocolate drinks and see what’s new for Christmas.
It has been a fun couple of weeks in the SL kitchen! To be completely honest, this is my most favoritest………(No, you won’t find that in the dictionary. I’ve been in a creative mood and sometimes there aren’t words in any of the languages I know that adequately describe my thoughts, so I have to make up my own new words.)….so……………it’s my most favoritest thing to do in the chocolate kitchen—create new chocolates and flavor combinations!!!
The holidays might seem like a distant occasion, but we have to begin planning for them early. So……..my most recent responsibility (which I take very seriously) is to create new chocolate confections for you to enjoy during your family celebrations in November and December. I even worked on some new pieces for Valentine’s Day this week!
The molds below give you a peek at the first attempt at our Artisan Ornament Collection that is coming for the Christmas season. Just today I finalized the flavors and finished the samples for product photos. I tried a number of different techniques and finally found one that performs like I want it to. I don’t want to spoil the surprise, but I can say that the finished product looks MUCH better than anything you get a glimpse of in the picture below.
We will offer two sizes of Artisan ornaments.
The larger ornament will be a Limited Edition with a look and flavor profile only available in 2010. We plan to create a new look and flavor for next year’s edition. This year the gorgeous, glossy milk chocolate shell will be filled with a Vanilla Butternut Buttercream, Toasted Almonds for a delightful crunch, and Caramel Ganache.
The smaller ornaments will come in three varieties making up a 7pc box. The flavors you are soon to enjoy are Pecan Caramel in milk chocolate, Maple Walnut Caramel in dark chocolate and Toasted Macadamia Nuts in solid white chocolate.
We’ll keep you posted!
This is our friend Sam McIntosh and his super duper amazing smoker rib cooker wagon. (He did not ok this wording, but we hope he won’t mind our description.)
The combination of Sam, all the great Pettisville Meats staff and the shiny, incredible BBQ apparatus equals one thing—slobber all over yourself DELICIOUS!
We have tried all summer to pin Sam’s menu and production schedule down so we can share it with you. But Sam is a creative sort of guy, and when it comes to meat fixin’s, you just can’t pin him down. All we know is the guy next door to Stella Leona is cooking up some mean ribs and whatever other meats strike his fancy on any particular afternoon.
Stop by for some lunch take-out or offer to “cook” dinner for the family. Shoot, you could even eat these for an afternoon snack! You’ll just have to be a little adventurous ‘cause you never know for sure what will be on the grill, but you can be sure it will include out-of-this-world taste! The smoker isn’t smokin’ quite every day, so you might want to call Pettisville Meats at 419-445-0921 to make sure it’s a take-out kind of day.
Of course, an even better idea is to pick up a mess of Sam’s ribs, some potato salad or their famous cole slaw and then stop by Stella Leona for some dessert to go with it all. Taking home dinner AND chocolates could get you some serious points at home!
Congratulations to Justin and Dessa! They celebrated their marriage and shared the love with their friends, family and guests via some Stella Leona chocolates created especially for the occasion.
These specially created heart boxes were tasty gifts for the bridal party. We were so excited about them and getting the entire order packed up for the big day that we forgot all about taking pictures of the platters of assorted chocolates for guests and the reception favors which were our chocolate covered pretzels in eggplant and white to match the wedding colors. That’s too bad because they were adorable!
Check out all our wedding and event favors by clicking here. We also love customizing chocolates to be uniquely yours, so contact us if you are interested in a variation of the favors on our site.
They’re here!! The new Artisan Bars by Stella Leona are here and just in time for Mother’s Day. If you’ve been following the blog, you have witnessed part of the development process. The final four flavors have been chosen and are now in production and available in our Pettisville location. They will soon be available at Red Rambler Coffees and hopefully at other locations near you.
The winning flavors are: Cherry Almond in a 61% semisweet chocolate and Peanut Butter Crunch in milk chocolate (shown above), as well as Espresso and Raspberry each in our 61% semisweet couverture. These flavors were chosen based on feedback from our professional taste testers. It’s a rough job, but somebody’s gotta do it!
For now you’ll have to stop by the shop to check out the bars. We’ll let you know as soon as they are available for purchase directly from the Stella Leona web site.
This is our friend, Sammy.
Sammy is one of our youngest professional taste testers of potential new products. He is developing a taste for fine chocolate at an early age and seems to have quite a discerning palate. We hope this is only the beginning of a lifelong relationship between us! We will soon be announcing the release date of the brand new Stella Leona Artisan Bars. Hopefully you will enjoy them as much as Sammy does. Thanks Sammy!
Thanks to Kent Nafziger Photography for the photos!
It was an exciting day for Becky and Nancy! We realized late yesterday that Stella Leona has been nibbled. If you are not familiar with The Nibble, it is a gourmet food magazine and web site for people who love to eat and drink the best specialty foods. It focuses on product reviews of specialty foods and beverages. Readers include the foodie, food lover, fine food enthusiast, and connoisseur as well as the student who wants to learn about gourmet food. Reviews are based on editor opinions that these are “the best of the best” products. To quote them directly, “If we write about it, we would spend our own money on it.” We consider this review an honor!
Click here to see the review of our one-and-only Birch Cream Caramels and Xocolatl Chocolates. A review of our Orange-Glazed Pecans can be found here. Of course you can order any of these items by clicking on the product name above or on our website www.stellaleona.com where you can check out all of our hand made chocolates. Mother’s Day is quickly approaching and a gift of Stella Leona chocolates has appreciation written all over it!
Now that the major chocolate holidays have come and gone, it’s time to get down to some creative work in the kitchen! Late spring and summer is the time of the year that we focus on developing new flavor profiles and product types. Frankly, it’s my favorite part of being a chocolatier. Our professional taste testers are plenty content when this season rolls around as well!
Here you’ll get a sneak peak at one of our new lines as it develops. We are currently working on developing some artisan chocolate bars that we can hand make in a way that will allow us to make them available for resale in a variety of retail settings. This is something we’ve been asked about for a long, long time. We have not done any wholesale business up until this point mainly out of concern for freshness and the short shelf life of our soft center chocolates.
So………………we decided to work on a line of artisan chocolate bars that will be much more shelf stable AND be hand made, beautiful and wildly delicious. Only time will tell, but we think we’re on to something.
We start with the same delectable chocolate you have come to expect from Stella Leona.
Then we added fruits and nuts and a couple of other not-yet-to-be-shared ingredients.
All that added together equals some combinations you will want to be sure to taste for yourself.
Watch for complete product photos including packaging (which is always mind-blowing coming from our amazing designer, Chad Shirey) coming very soon!!!
We thought you’d want to know how content Peter is in his new home. Here he is with his new best friend, Addie. Thanks to the Bucksteiners!!!
Richard Bucksteiner!!!!! Congratulations! Richard is the lucky winner of the amazing, like-no-other Grand Easter Bunny table centerpiece! He is a whopping 3 pounds of milk chocolate and stands 24 inches tall adding a BIG splash of color to a celebration. Thank you to all of you who registered either in our shop, at Pettisville Meats or via email. Keep watching this blog for further giveaways this summer. Have a blessed Easter!!!
We just keep painting away! Even though the weather in northwest Ohio is still a bit dingy and gray, inside Stella Leona it is bright and cheerful thanks to all the hand painting going on.
These are the colorful chocolate flower medallions, carrots and speckled eggs that hide inside our Petit Easter Bunny pictured here.
He is an adorable little guy! Kids usually take a crack at him by biting off his ear and then squeal with delight at the hidden treasures inside. The Petit Easter Bunny is made of milk chocolate while the painted pieces are dark and white chocolate. This sweet gift retails for $15.75. Click here to order yours early as these will be in limited supply.
Hoppin’ down the bunny trail…….well, not exactly. Let’s just say Peter had an extreme makeover!! Easter is quickly approaching and that means it’s time for lots of hand painting at Stella Leona. I thought you might enjoy seeing how some of these beautiful chocolates are created. Our most impressive painted chocolate is definitely our Easter Bunny Centerpiece.
He stands approximately 20 inches high and contains over 2 pounds of creamy milk chocolate. This is an Easter dinner centerpiece like no other!
Each bunny is meticulously hand painted and no two are exactly alike. It takes an entire day to make just one.
We can’t share all our secrets about how we make these, but it is an understatement to say that there are many steps and the process is very labor intensive. If we make any mistakes or attempt to rush the process in any way, the bunny will come out of the mold with chips or streaks in the color and be unusable. Ultimately if we did everything right, he hops right out of the mold like something from The Gingerbread Man, looking brilliant and bright!
If you’d like to share our Easter Bunny Centerpiece at your Easter dinner, be sure to reserve yours now. Due to the time involved in creating each of these, we only make enough to fill orders placed, but we’d love to make one for you! It is truly a joy to create special gifts that show friends and family how much they are appreciated and valued.
Be sure to stop in our shop or at Pettisville Meats next door to sign up to win one of these centerpieces. One winner will be drawn on April 2nd and notified by email to pick up their centerpiece on Saturday, April 3rd.
It's here!!! Our much anticipated Milk Chocolate Bacon Bark has arrived! Our retail shop is located right next to the famous Pettisville Meats store. We love those guys and their savory meat creations! Our Bacon Bark was born out of a marriage of our rich milk chocolate and their mouth watering bacon crumbles. 
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