Eats

Candy Land Discover holiday sweets aplenty at these Syracuse chocolate shops

Never mind the sugarplums dancing in your head and the candy canes on the tree. If you really want to sweeten your holiday season, you need chocolate. Milk or dark, plain or filled, nutty, fruity or creamy, fancy or festive, Syracuse candy makers have them all in designs, shapes and wrappings, many made especially for Christmas, Chanukah or Kwanzaa.

Michael E. Speach Jr., the fourth-generation owner of Speach Family Candy Shoppe, a 90-year-old business at 2400 Lodi St., will be putting in long hours to make sure customers get all the chocolate they need to fulfill their holiday dreams. Speach makes most of the handmade chocolates himself, accommodating a huge December surge in special orders, wholesale demand and promotional sales. “It’s mostly me,” Speach shrugs. “Last night I was here until midnight and I got here around 9 this morning. I’ll probably be here until midnight tonight.”

About a mile away, a team of retired nuns from the Sisters of the Third Franciscan Order will be creating heavenly chocolate at Nun Better Chocolates & Custom Gift Bas kets, 2500 Grant Blvd. While they toil over dozens of different candy treats, including a few Chanukah specialties, Christmas, predictably enough, brings in plenty of shoppers looking for Christian-themed items. “All of the religious molds are really special because they can’t get them in many other places but here,” explains shop manager Sister Jane. “So we have a lot of things like angels and special Christmas crosses and things like that.”

Meanwhile, customers seeking gourmet chocolates visit Sweet On Chocolate in Armory Square for their holiday shopping. The 17-year-old business, located at 208 Walton St., produces elegant candies and wraps them in shiny gold boxes tied with a flourish of colorful ribbons, creating a true treasure chest for chocolate lovers. “What sets us apart from other companies is we’re all handmade,” boasts owner P.J. Goodman. “A lot of the big companies are automated. It’s basically doing it the old-fashioned way.”

At Christmas more than any other time of year, shoppers often know what to buy for the loved one on their lists and this trio of city businesses knows how to please them, each in its own way, but with a common passion. “At Christmastime our truffles are very, very popular and we box them up,” Goodman says. “It’s a good gift. They’re basically bite-sized pieces, so you’re not trying to chew down a big cluster. People appreciate the ease of it. It’s a nice little gift if you’re stuck for a secret Santa gift. We have a fourpiece and a six-piece.”

For gift-shoppers at Nun Better, chocolates beautifully packaged in baskets with stuffed animals, ornaments or in theme baskets with profession- or sports-related icons, are popular items that customers can special order by phone (701-0920), but not through the website. “We do up a lot of gift baskets, a lot of corporate orders,” Sister Jane says. “They’re all specially made to order. We have all kinds of candy, but no baskets are already made up. So if somebody wants one, it would be custom made. Prices are whatever people want to spend: $5 to $100.” Customers are urged to call in orders at least a week ahead.

While the Speach website ( www.speach familycandy.com) pictures an impressive line of stock items including antique-style Santas, chocolate-peppermint brickle, chocolate coffee stirrers and even a new basket with a collectible from Department 56, a manufacturer of popular miniature village scenes and holiday characters, their year-round top seller easily transitions into a holiday favorite. “Hands down, our most popular items are the chocolate potato chips,” Speach reveals. “It’s not just a Christmas item, but people buy them as Christmas gifts, as something unique to bring to parties as a hostess gift. If you’re going to someone’s house, it’s a great, unique thing to bring.” The specially made chips are covered in milk, dark or white chocolate or white flavored with peanut butter.

All three shops scramble to meet holiday demand, a daunting task, but a welcome one, even for the senior sisters, now in their first decade in business at Nun Better. “They’re all retired, all in their 80s or 90s, but me,” Sister Jane explains. “They do the packaging, curling, pricing and labeling. It gives them something to do. That is why we opened the store, to create something they could continue to do. They’ve worked all their lives. They like to feel like they’re contributing and they do feel like they’re contributing to this.”

Speach does about a third of his annual business during the holiday season, all without elves, but he does have some helpers.

Other local shops that make Christmas chocolates:

Norma B’s, 309 Vine St., Liverpool, 457-3100. Preservative-free candy sold in space shared with a dry cleaner shop.

Stone’s Homemade Candy Shop, 145 W. Bridge St., Oswego, 343-8401. Long-standing Port City favorite.

Hercules Candy Company, 209 W.

Heman St., East Syracuse, 463-4339; www.herculescandy.com. Enormous selection of fine chocolate.

“All of my friends and family that normally want me to go to parties and know that I can’t,” he says. “Instead of me going to them, they’ll bring me pizza and sit here and watch movies and help me make trays. That’s what my Christmas has become, not me going to Christmas parties, it’s them coming here. Last year friends who moved down to Virginia surprised me. They came with two bottles of wine and dinner from Asti’s. They brought it here and we had a great time. They helped me make 40 trays that night.”

The small staff at Sweet On Chocolate (www.sweetonchocolate.com) is anchored by candy-making dynamo Gayle Cronk. “Gayle is the ultimate employee,” Goodman raves. “I’ve seen her crank out over 10,000 pieces in a day. It’s hard to find somebody who is as demanding on themselves working for you and she’s phenomenal. She cares about the business.”

Despite the best efforts of the artists, they sometimes run out of popular items. “We had one customer come late in the season for Christmas and we didn’t have any more four-piece truffle boxes,” Goodman recalls. “We sell out, we can’t keep up. She had to go buy Godiva and she put it in her son’s stocking and he said, ‘Oh, very funny, Mommy, where’s the {Sweet On Chocolate}?’ She said, ‘There is none,’ and he was really upset.”

The moral of the story, Goodman says, is to order early, especially if someone on your list has a special request or traditional favorite. “Every year we try different things to keep from running out, but we still run out,” he says. “You can only make so much