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| Chocolate factory blends old recipes with new technology |
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Chuck Smith is one of the owners of the Angell & Phelps Chocolate Factory – and he loves his job.
The company that now operates both the chocolate factory and a fun restaurant began when Riddell Angell and Cora Phelps started the factory in 1925. Visitors can come and eat great food in the café and then take a free tour of the factory and see just how they make the great candy, available in the gift shop.
On the Angell and Phelps website, Charles Smith shares a bit of history about the ladies: “They would spend the summers in the resort town of Mackinac Island, Mich., where they also had a shop, and the winters here in Daytona Beach. At the start of WWII, they had to close the shop in Michigan.
“I doubt that many women in the (19)20s were able to start a business. On top of that, these gutsy ladies were making chocolates in Florida before the invention of air conditioning! Somehow, they were able to make the business flourish.”
In 1953, the ladies sold the store to Ed and Helen Resinger, who had moved to Daytona Beach from Ohio. The couple doubled the size of the operation and added milk chocolate. As the years went by, the couple decided to sell the factory to longtime customer Alvin Smith.
Being a busy doctor, Smith relegated the factory to his sons, Chuck and Charles, and his brother, Sonny. Over the years, Smith’s wife, Ann, would also join what continues to be a family business.
The chocolate factory and restaurant are located at 154 South Beach Street in historic downtown Daytona Beach. Although years have passed since the two women operated the factory and the location has changed a couple of times, Chuck Smith said, “Production is still done here in the old-fashioned way. All candy is sold here and on our website.”
Most cocoa, he shared, comes from the rain forest. “The name for chocolate is Theo Brome cacao; Theo is God and Brome is food, meaning, God Food,” he said.
A lot happens between the tree and candy production. The trees produce pods, which are split and the beans are dried to ferment in the sun. Chocolate can be made into a bar or liquor. Chocolate liquor can go through a press and become cocoa butter, and the leftover cake is pulverized into cocoa powder. White chocolate only has cocoa butter.
On a tour, Smith said, “We made caramel today, and made what others call turtles, we call ‘honeybees.’ When making candy, everything is measured and weighed – sugar, corn syrup and,” he joked, “even the employees.”
The machine room is kept at between 55-66 degrees. The humidity is low and the room is cool and dry. “This is where we pour chocolate into a mold,” he said. “We keep it dry so the chocolate runs smooth. Steam and water cause chocolate to thin.”
Once candy comes out of the mold, if it is to be covered, it goes into the enrober. Several of the candies have designs to fit a specific client.
For more information about the Angell & Phelps Chocolate Factory or Café, call 386-257-2677 or log onto www.angellandphelps.com
Readers with questions or comments for Cindy Ladage may write to her in care of this publication. |
| 8/26/2009 |
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