Local chocolate and candy makers are whipping up their most delectable batches of confections for Valentine’s Day.

Growing up, Amanda Telford had a kindly neighbor who gave her homemade caramels. Something about the fresh, home-cooked quality of the treats set them apart from store-bought candy and permanently branded them in her memory.

“It was the consistency that really made the difference for me,” Telford said. “It was creamy, it was luscious, it wasn’t sticky.”

It took Telford many long hours of experimentation and 40 or 50 trial batches to accurately replicate that creamy goodness. Now, she’s got it nailed. She launched her own caramel business, Tahana Confections, in January. 

Telford rents space from a commercial kitchen in Portsmouth to cook her caramels, using locally sourced ingredients whenever possible. She creates a surprising array of flavors, from ganache-covered vanilla to specialty orders like spicy cayenne. She also makes seasonal varieties, including red cinnamon for Valentine’s Day.

There are so many flavorful possibilities that Telford does not plan to offer anything other than caramel-based confections. She’s never been a big fan of chocolate, and she thinks of caramel as a tasty alternative.

“There’s so much potential and there’s so much you can do with caramels that I don’t know that we’ll ever go past them,” she said.

But there are plenty of other shops in the area that specialize in everything from chocolate to fudge to saltwater taffy. Telford is the latest cook to enter a rich community of candy makers dedicated to satisfying the Seacoast’s sweet tooth.

For now, Telford’s products are only available at a handful of retail locations, including the Portsmouth Salt Cellar on Commercial Alley. She’ll soon begin distributing online, as well, and partnering with other local businesses.

Tahana will team up with the Salt Cellar and chef Doug Johnson, of recently closed restaurant The Rosa, for a pre-Valentine’s Day event on Sunday, Feb. 12, from 2 to 3 p.m. The “Sweet and Salty Mashup” will feature demonstrations pairing caramels and chocolate treats with specialty finishing salts.

According to Telford, adding new ingredients like salts to the mix can result in whole new taste sensations.

“It’s almost like eating a completely different candy every time you do it,” she said. “It’s fascinating to see how one ingredient can completely change the experience and the feel that you get from that bite.”

Ellen Byrne of Byrne & Carlson would agree. She said the store’s most popular chocolate bar is the French 68 with Sea Salt, a blend of French chocolates sprinkled with fleur de sel sea salt. The combination of dark, bitter chocolate and sea salt makes for a taste Byrne described as “exquisite.”

Like Telford, Byrne’s fondness for sweets dates back to her youth. While in high school, she worked summer jobs at chocolate shops around Boston. She continued working through her years at the Massachusetts College of Art and, after graduating, studied chocolate in Paris.

The first Byrne & Carlson store opened in downtown Portsmouth in 1999. Byrne and co-owner Chris Carlson later added a production kitchen on “Gourmet Alley” in Kittery, Maine, where they opened a second retail location in 2008.

All Byrne & Carlson’s candies are handmade using cocoa beans from Central and South America, Madagascar, the Dominican Republic and West Africa, along with a variety of local ingredients, including mint from their own garden.

“All our work is done by hand,” Byrne said. “It’s a little bit extraordinary.”

On Feb. 2, staff members were busy in the kitchen whipping up confections in preparation for the Valentine’s rush. While Carlson filled white chocolate hearts with a cinnamon-infused ganache, Jean Husby dipped clusters of hazelnut in chocolate ganache to be included in their Valentine’s assortments. A recently completed batch of peppermint swirl bark lay on a nearby counter.

Meanwhile, Joyce Vaughan hand-rolled chocolate ganache into round balls to form the centers of fresh cream truffles, Byrne’s personal favorite product. Making a batch of truffles is a two-day process conducted once a week. First, Carlson makes the ganache. The following day, Vaughan rolls it into balls, which are then dipped in French chocolate. Because they’re made with heavy cream and include no preservatives, the truffles need to be shipped as quickly as possible.

“They’re the most delicate and labor-intensive, but certainly the richest chocolate we make,” Byrne said.

Indeed, most candies are labor-intensive to make. John Watkins of Hutchinson’s Candy in Hampton said most of the store’s products are cooked onsite.

“We have a kitchen right here in the back and we make a lot of our products here,” he said. “It’s all handmade and we have machinery that packages it.”

Their fudge is cooked over an open fire in a copper kettle. They also make crunchy peanut brittle with freshly cooked jumbo Spanish peanuts, as well as caramel corn with fresh-popped popcorn and a homemade caramel glaze.

As  Hutchinson spoke, he heard something crash to the floor in the kitchen and hoped it wasn’t the 40-pound copper pot he had just purchased for $1,000. Their caramel is cooked at a temperature of 270 degrees.

“We don’t buy a can of caramel and pour it onto our popcorn. We start with the brown sugar and work our way up to caramel,” Watkins said.

Caramel is not the healthiest of treats. At Tahana Confections, the main ingredients include heavy cream, sugar, vanilla, corn syrup and butter. But Tahana caramel squares are small and delicious enough to justify an occasional indulgence. And some varieties are healthier than others. Telford’s mother is allergic to corn, so she made a batch using maple syrup, then pressed in some nuts for extra flavor. She’s willing to work with customers, too, to meet their particular needs.

“I think it’s always nice to have some interaction with the people who buy what you make,” Telford said.

Another local option that’s free of corn syrup is Roly’s English Fudge in Portsmouth. Following English traditions, the shop’s fudge is made in small batches and worked by hand on granite slabs until it can be cut into pieces. The fudge flavors include everything from coffee to lemon meringue to pumpkin pie.

Sanborn’s Candies in Hampton allows customers to order personalized chocolate assortments from its website. The business also has a store on Lafayette Road and a summer shop at Hampton Beach.

The Goldenrod at York Beach makes its own saltwater taffy using a recipe that dates back to 1896. The taffy is boiled in copper kettles, then cooled into sheets that are fed through the shop’s mechanical pulling machines. It’s then fed into a separate cutting machine that cuts the taffy into bite-sized pieces. Goldenrod Kisses, as they’re called, are made on demand (the store is only open in the summer).

The Fiesta Candy Company, based in Rochester, offers an assortment of “chocolate rocks” made from milk chocolate with a candy coating. The Fiesta plant, which sells its products online, also makes chocolate seashells and coins, as well as chocolate-coated sunflower seeds and espresso beans.

The Seacoast is also home to a multinational candy giant. Swiss chocolate company Lindt & Sprüngli has a factory outlet in Stratham.

It’s not just candy stores that provide the Seacoast with sweets. Fa La Lo of Portsmouth, for instance, sells a number of delectable treats using only fair trade, organic chocolate.

Some independent businesses are working together to spread candy around the Seacoast. Hutchinson’s sells some of its products at Maine-ly New Hampshire in Portsmouth. Another example is the upcoming collaboration between Tahana Confections and the Portsmouth Salt Cellar.

“I like the concept of working with whoever is local,” Telford said. “It’s always great when businesses can work together instead of trying to compete.”

find a candy store near you

Byrne & Carlson
www.byrneandcarlson.com
121 State St., Portsmouth
and 60 State Road, Kittery
888-559-9778

Fiesta Candy Company
www.fiestacandy.com
25 Old Dover Road, Rochester
603-335-0003

The Goldenrod
www.thegoldenrod.com
2 Railroad Ave., York
207-363-2621

Hutchinson’s Candy
www.hutchinsonscandy.com
893 Lafayette Road, Hampton
603-926-3033

Lindt Factory Outlet
www.lindtusa.com
3 Portsmouth Ave., Stratham
603-772-3614

Mainely Gourmet
55 Hanover St., Portsmouth
603-433-3210

Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory
www.rockymountainchocolatefactory.com
50 Fox Run Road, Newington
603-431-6633

Roly’s English Fudge
www.englishfudge.com
10 Commercial Alley, Portsmouth
603-343-1165

Sanborn’s Candies
www.sanbornscandies.com
293 Lafayette Road, Hampton
603-926-5061

Sweet Josie’s Candy Shoppe
50 Fox Run Road, Newington
603-436-3900
and 7 Railroad Ave., York
207-351-1169

Yummies Candy & Nuts
www.yummies.com
384 State Road, Kittery
877-498-6643