Handmade Chocolate @ Woodfarm Barns
We’ve teamed up with another amazing local business for you and this is one everyone will love; Handmade Chocolate made just around the corner from us in the heart of the Suffolk countryside!
I’d spotted Sarah Gilliver’s handmade chocolate in two of our other local ‘business partners’; The Deli @ the Chilli Farm and Lucy Jane Flowers so I got in touch as I’d been looking at a way of treating our guests to even more delicious Suffolk goodies in their welcome basket when they come to stay.
Sarah came to see me to talk about her amazing proper cottage industry The Chocolate Studio and very kindly brought along some samples. I don’t usually eat dairy myself but I did have to try (for research purposes) her Champagne Truffles and Wow! Just Wow! They are incredible! I wasn’t sure at first so I had another one and I was right!
We’ve been asking our guests about their thoughts on the provenance and importance of sampling local goodies when going away and as we thought, this is a key factor with most of our guests. Sampling good quality local produce is considered part of the holiday. Most of us eat run of the mill things at home but when we treat ourselves to a break we love to treat ourselves and take the time to savour the very best from the local area. We have some great partnerships now, all of whom we’ve written about in our Blog Posts and Sarah’s Handmade Chocolate from The Chocolate Studio is up there with the best of them.
As with all of our local suppliers, Sarah is extremely passionate about what she does, which kinda goes hand in hand with my approach to Woodfarm and how we work to ensure our guests are happy. And finding gems like Sarah is all part of that process.
She told me about how she loves spending hours in the kitchen and how her handmade chocolate business started by making something for a friend and then getting feedback that she should do this for a living. So she did! She is self-taught and her enthusiasm for making her handmade chocolate really comes across
Using the finest Belgian chocolate, Sarah works with high quality, local where possible ingredients, and only using either organic or sustainable produce, paying a fair price to growers and producers and ensuring quality over quantity.
The other thing that struck me about Sarah was that whilst her handmade chocolate definitely fits into the naughty treat category, she focusses on making her products as healthy as possible and doesn’t add sugar in most of her products and only uses unrefined sugar in her Florentines and Real Ale Truffles. She adds fruit to many of the products such as Inca and Mulberries, Goji Berries, Cranberries and Blueberries, which are all full of antioxidants and vitamins.
She uses lots of nuts too, which is great!
All of her products as made in small batches by hand and packaged beautifully.
So after much excitement, I decided that we would try the Florentines as a little extra treat for our guests to entice them to buy some of The Chocolate Studio’s fabulous chocolate bars. We now hold a small stock here for guests to buy at the same price as they can pick them up in one of the local stockists, with a larger range available at those places.
Please have a look at all of Sarah’s Handmade Chocolate products to whet your appetite on her website here and if you fancy trying these amazing Florentines with a nice cuppa when you arrive in your Suffolk Holiday Cottage then have a look at our availability here and get yourself to Handmade Chocolate Heaven!
