Pretty-Up Your Chocolate Stash

From Miette

Come & get 'em! More Mast Brothers Bars, in all their glory. After several months using Madagascar cocoa as the base for all their bars, the Mast boys have moved on to beans from the Dominican Republic. That's right, they use beans seasonally! So tough.

We cracked open a Single Origin 81% bar, you know, for research, and it's delightful. Unlike the tangy, fruity, almost sour quality of the Madagascar chocolate, this bar reminds us most intensely of a freshly-pulled shot of espresso. Just imagine that: the incomparable combination of brightness, roastiness, subtle sweetness, and dark richness, topped off with that magical creaminess that all proper espresso should have. Where does that creaminess come from?! The ether? All we know is that it's fabulous.

Mast Brothers Chocolate Bars:
Salt&Pepper, Black Truffle & Sea Salt, Stumptown Coffee, & 81% Single Origin
Availability: Ferry Building, Octavia
Price: $12

Oh, Mast Brothers...

From Miette

...you've outdone yourselves. Again. Four new Limited Edition bars, in the world's prettiest papers.

Black Truffle & Sea Salt (shown above)~ incredibly sophisticated, earthy, funky, and a total knock-out. Get a loaf of Acme bread, a bottle of wine, a Black Truffle bar, and you've got dinner. -SOLD OUT

Maple & Pecan~ what I imagine Vermont tastes like- the maple syrup adds a complex, liquor-y sweetness that blends perfectly with the roasted pecans. We took a shopgirl-vote, and this is the first bar we opened to sample. Good choice. -SOLD OUT

Stumptown Coffee~ there's nothing hotter than a collaboration between Mast Brothers & Stumptown- except eating this bar at the Ace Hotel. That's the dream. Ethiopian coffee has the personality to stand up to the tangy Madagascar coffee, and the sweetness is subtle, just-right. You figure, if anyone can nail the tricky chocolate-coffee combination, it's those two forces of awesome. PDX + NYC love, right here in SFO. Now if someone could just send me a Stumptown/Mast Brothers mocha, I'll be all set. -SOLD OUT

Cranberry~ um, we haven't tried this one yet. The paper is gorgeous (purple & green), and we love cranberries, but there's only so much chocolate you can taste in one day- even for pros like us! Soon! -Still a few at Octavia!

Seasonal Mast Brothers Bars
Availability: Mostly sold-out, but we have another order pending! Price: $12
Notes: We also have Salt&Pepper, Almonds&SeaSalt, & Plain 70% Madagascar!

Fluffy & Pink, like our souls

From Miette

When your Ballerina Princess career plans are foiled, it's very important to move on & find fulfillment in fields that don't involve tiaras & people throwing flowers at you. (Note to Customers: please feel free to throw flowers.) But sometimes, just sometimes, you have to indulge your ballerina spirit. Wear tights as pants! Rock the super-tight bun! Wear a tutu to your 30th birthday party (any suggestions on where to buy an awesome tutu?)!

From Miette

Get yourself something beautiful & ballet-pink & fluffy, and breathe a sigh of relief.

From Miette

Of course, ballerinas aren't all about pink prettiness. When I studied ballet I much preferred the all-in-black, stern, Russian look. We don't have any candies like that right now.

From Miette

We do have our Rosettes, tiny rose meringues infused with Eatwell Farms Organic Rose Geranium Oil, in a new handy-dandy tube. Throw them in your dance bag & you're all set for another day at the office.

Rosettes (Rose Geranium Meringues)
Availability: Ferry Building, Octavia
Price: $5
Notes: Dairy-Free
(Also Pictured: Champagne Bubbles, Malt Balls, Fancy French Marshmallows)

From Miette

Did you know? Everyday, approximately 92 people walk into a Miette shop & request our Fleur de Sel Caramels. And everyday since January, the shopgirls have had to say, "No, I'm afraid we stopped making those. We loved them, but they were simply too labor intensive for our little band of bakers". And everyday, 92 hearts get broken.

From Miette

But not today. Today our caramels are back in all their glory. Buttery, firm, and delightful, with those perfectly place chunks of sea salt on top. There even a bit larger than they used to be, which is always nice.

And before I forget, or anyone panics, the chocolate caramels are back, too!

Miette Fleur de Sel & Chocolate Fleur de Sel Caramels

Availability: Ferry Building, Octavia, Chestnut

Price: $1.50

If you get your heart broken by a shopgirl anyway, that's between you & her.

The Miette Blog: Now in Glorious Technicolor Turkeyvision

From Miette

That's right! We're sparing no expense this holiday season, and have invested in a state-of-the-art Turkeyscope for your festive blog-reading pleasure. Festive & a little bit trippy.

From Miette

I've seen some turkeys in my day....they're usually pretty scraggly, you could even say ugly, though wild turkeys do have a certain mysterious elegance. But I've never seen colors like this...

From Miette

Teal, hot-pink, gold, purple: this kind of sartorial daring is what earned these the title of Official Chocolate Turkey of Miette. I fall for them harder every year.

From Miette

You know those early naturalistic illustrations? Like from the first time Europeans saw a drawing of a lion or a whale? And all the animals have human features? And you can tell that the person who actually saw the thought-to-be-mythical animal & the person who did the drawing were definitely not the same person?

From Miette

That's what these turkeys make me think of. Like, an explorer was describing a turkey, got overly-excited & started describing a peacock, threw in a lorikeet for good measure, and this is what the incredulous illustrator came up with. Or perhaps there is a technicolor turkey somewhere out there, and we'll just have to be satisfied with these little souvenirs until we get a chance to see it for ourselves.

Solid Chocolate Turkeys
Price: Large $10, Small $5, Tiny $0.50
Availability: Ferry Building, Octavia, Chestnut

Wanna come over after school?

From Miette

Presenting, the ultimate after-school snack for adults: Ants on a Log truffle, from the moustachioed mastermind at Pink,White,Brown. When Dane told me about these I freaked out imagining how amazing they could be. And when he sent a sample, they were even better! That does not happen very often in the candy world! But Dane's a bit of a genius: milk & dark chocolate combined perfectly with peanut butter (again, very rare!), garnished with plump raisins, and elevated to genius with...celery salt! Celery salt, people! I can't get over it. And I can't stop eating them.


This truffle has come at the perfect time: after hating celery my whole life, I have become obsessed with it the last few years. I think it all began with the incredibly spring-fresh celery-infused cocktail at Nopa that I can't remember the name of, and that they hadn't made since. Maybe someday? Perhaps in exchange for some Ants on a Log?

And if anyone knows how to obtain Bitter Truth Celery Bitters without paying 11Euros +13Euros shipping (um, that comes to $35!), please let me know. Mmm, those Mole Bitters look good too...

Ants on a Log
Price: $2
Availability: Octavia Sold out!

How could I have forgotten to tell you?!

From Miette

Glorious, glorious Go Max Go candy bars are now at our Chestnut location! Here's a little love letter I wrote to them. "Dear Candy Bars, I love you soooo much....."

Go Max Go Bars
Price: $3
Availability: Octavia, Chestnut
Notes: Vegan & Incredible!

Just a hint...

From Miette

...we don't want to start a stampede.

From Miette

Fleur de Sel, Almonds & Sea Salt, Salt & Pepper, 70% Madagascar
Location: Octavia only, for now
Price: $12

Hooker's Sweet Treats!

From Miette

We've searched far & wide for the perfect chocolate-covered caramel, which sounds like an easy task but it was NOT! But now we've found it! Handmade in tiny batches by David, these perfect little bites are only available at Miette, the gorgeously spooky Perish Trust, and from the adorable boys at Sightglass Coffee. Oh, and you should go to both of those places because they're amazing! Tell them the Miettegirls sent you!

From Miette

Hooker's Sweet Treats
Price: $3.50/single, $10/box of 3
Availability: Ferry Building, Octavia, Chestnut

Oh My Freaking Goodness.

Here at Miette, we find candy very exciting. But this is almost too much. To express our enthusiasm, we'll need italics & pom pons & a whole new form of punctuation...

From Miette

...an exclamation point covered in sprinkles.

The Go-Max-Go bars have arrived! These are brilliant, delicious, all-natural, veganized versions of classic candy bars. Eeeeee!

The Twilight, above, contains caramel & nougat, covered in rice-milk chocolate. This was the first bar we were able to try, and we flipped out. But there was so much fun to follow...

From Miette

Jokerz! Chock-full of nougat, caramel, & peanuts, and covered in creamy rice-milk chocolate. We love the saltiness & roastiness of the peanuts, and how perfectly they contrast with the sweet elements. One (of a million) great thing about these bars is that they are nice & sweet like you want a candy bar to be, but not too sweet! The elusive perfect point of sweetness!

From Miette

None of us expected to fall for the Buccaneer. Nougat? Meh. In candy bars it's usually spongey & eggy & mysterious. But today we understand nougat. It's gooey & sweet & simply lovely.

From Miette

And oh, the Mahalo. I've been eating two a day. And a sensible dinner! Creamy, gorgeous coconut center topped with three roasted almonds, wrapped in rice-milk chocolate. I was eating a Mahalo while I took this photo. How can you resist that pretty pretty wrapper?

In conclusion! Be very, very excited. Our expert non-vegan testers verified that these are better than the traditional versions, and they are certainly better than the way I remember the candy bars of my youth! We love love love that they're vegan, but the fact that they don't contain any artificial ingredients!!!! Artificially-flavored treats always leave you feeling like, "Um, did I eat that? I think I tasted it, & maybe I enjoyed it...". But when you eat one of these bars, you feel like, "Yeah! I just ate a candy bar! Let's ride our bikes to the pool! Yay for fun!"

Go, Max, Go Vegan Candy Bars
Price: $3/each
Availability: Only at Octavia (for now!)

*Update 8.6.09 We are SOLD OUT of Go Max Go bars, but there are more on the way! We will let y'all know when we have more!

*Update 8.20.09 They are back in! (Um, except for the Mahalo which is already sold out!)

A Sweet, Sweet, Bride-To-Be

Last week Miette Confiserie hosted our first-ever Candy Tasting Party! It was awesome! Even though I was super-nervous & clumsy!

The party was created for a lovely bride-to-be and 6 of her delightful friends. They listened to me ramble about the history, chemistry, and all-around fun of candy for an hour: any excuse to talk about candy!
We started with sugar at it's purest with Grapefruit Cotton Candy, and explored other "sugary" candy options: Italian Fruit Fondants, French Violet Hard-candies, "Humbugs", and Fancy Lemon Marshmallows!
Now, if you caramelize that sugar, you get...caramels! A Miette staple! Salted butter caramels from France! Salted butter caramels from Oakland! Maple-honey caramels from San Francisco! Salted Carambars! The sugar is kickin in!
Then we took it down a notch for some serious licorice investigation. Even the licorice-non-enthusiasts loved the marshmallowy Griotten, but the ammonia-intense Riksen were universally NOT a hit. No argument here! Good thing there's minty Schoolchalk to cleanse the palate, and Dark-Chocolate Licorice Lentils to lead us on to....

...Chocolate! But I forgot to take a photo before I hacked the bars to bits! Just trust that they were gorgeous & chocolatey & added a little caffeine to our sugar-fest.

The ladies performed some heroic feats of candy-eating. I was seriously impressed, and I eat candy for a living! Thank you, everybody! I hope you have recovered from the sugar crash!

Candy-Tasting Party!
Availability: Octavia
Please email for details: tess@miette.com

Who Wouldn't Make Passes at Girls with Moustaches?

From Miette

Our delivery of handmade chocolate moustaches arrived from Portland yesterday, and the shopgirls have been looking particularly lovely ever since.

From Miette

So sweet & angelic, though we might need to commission a white-chocolate moustache for her.

From Miette

Dark chocolate moustaches & vintage dresses: what more could we ask for?

From Miette

Oh, yeah.

Price: $12
Availability: Ferry Building, Octavia, Chestnut
Notes: Milk or Dark Chocolate, Made by Dane of Pink, White, Brown

You can eat them, but would you?

From Miette

Sweet little bombonieres bouquets, handmade in Sulmona, Italy. If you are quite dexterous & patient, you can unwrap the cellophane from each little petal to reveal candy-coated chocolate! Or you can just gaze at your little posy, & rest easy knowing you have emergency chocolate on hand.

Availability: Ferry Building, Octavia, Chestnut. Styles vary by shop!
Price: $3-$6.50

Don't get too excited...

...it's just a wrapper. However! We have reason to believe that Mast Brothers bars will soon be making their way to us from Brooklyn. Oh, we've missed them so!
The bars, of course.
We are professionals.

The Miettegirl & the Sea

Here at the Confiserie, we entertain ourselves by setting up little vignettes, dreaming up complicated surroundings & circumstances for our candy. Candy nerds we are, one & all.

Our favorite spot in the shop right now is nicknamed The Captain's Table. We imagine a taciturn, bearded Captain who's off at sea, but we're keeping his table just the way he left it for the day he returns.* It holds his salt water taffy, chocolate sardines, and gold bullion (has he a bit of pirating in his past, or does he just enjoy milk chocolate Gianduja?). Weather-worn maps, a sextant (whatever that is), an hour-glass, everything a captain could need. Still, it seems like something's missing....





Ah, of course: a licorice pipe. Much better.



*Does that make us Brand-ay?

Licorice Pipes
Availability: Ferry Building, Octavia, Chestnut
Price: $1-$1.50

Gianduja
Availability: Octavia
Price: $1

Salt Water Taffy
Availability: Ferry Building, Octavia, Chestnut
Price: 25cents/peice, $20/tin

Marshmallows, & Much, Much More

Hi!
We're super-excited to be here, and even more excited that our handmade marshmallows are back! Our current flavors are Honey, Vanilla, & Lavender, and they are as soft & pillowy as any marshmallows could hope to be! On your way to a black-tie bonfire? Add our snappy graham crackers and some fine local chocolate (Maison Bouche, perhaps?), and you've got the poshest s'mores ever!

Availability: Ferry Building, Octavia, Chestnut
Price: $3.50/bag