My Favorite Chocolate Shops in the U.K.

While living in the U.K., I loved visiting chocolate shops. My favorite was Truffles at Coco. I trained with the owners over a couple of months and I sincerely admire them. Their product is unmatched and their service is exceptional.

Another chocolate shop that I liked was Hotel Chocolat. Below are some pictures of Hotel Chocolat products.

These are pictures from Hotel Chocolat website. Yum, Yum, Yum.........

Custom Gelato Cakes

I will spend most of my time on this blog featuring my custom chocolates, but I did want to take the opportunity to showcase my custom gelato cakes.

Strawberry sorbet layered white cake finished with whipped cream and fresh strawberries. We soaked the strawberries in lemon and sugar overnight to enhance the flavor. This cake was a hit at the baby shower.

Below is a dark chocolate gelato and vanilla cake. The birthday girl wanted dark chocolate not milk. I made the vanilla cake and punched holes in the cake for dark chocolate sauce. I made dark chocolate sauce using our 50% Swiss dark chocolate. I poured the sauce over the cake and let it sit. I placed the dark chocolate gelato on top of the sauce and cake.

I covered it with whipped cream and chocolate shavings.

I handmade two dark chocolate ballerinas to decorate the cake.

The perfect little girl cake!

Wedding Soiree - 2008 Wedding Planner Workshop

I had the privilege of meeting Gail Johnson, one of the owners of Wedding Soiree, at my shop last week. She came to the pickup chocolates for her wedding planner workshop. After talking with her for a couple of minutes, I could see why her business has been and will continue to be a success. Gail is passionate, detail oriented and client focused. I look forward to working with her in the future. Gail provided these pictures courtesy of Belletti Photography.

Milk Chocolate Turtle Topped with a Whole Pecan, Crème Caramel White Chocolate Truffle and Milk Chocolate Truffle with an Antique Silver Finish

Bird's-eye view....... Delicious!

For more exceptional photos of the event, visit Wedding Soiree's Blog or Belletti Photography's Blog.

Custom Truffles - Pink Ribbon

This weekend, we made and donated custom truffles for a breast cancer fundraising event. Below is our Creme Caramel Milk Truffles with custom pink ribbon finish.

Simple, Elegant Display

Such a beautiful finish

In October, Dreamy Gelato & Chocolates will be raising money to help find a cure for breast cancer . Research indicates that breast cancer is the most common cancer in women in the United States. According to the American Cancer Society, it's estimated that About 178,480 women in the United States will be found to have invasive breast cancer in 2007. About 40,460 women will die from the disease this year. To get involved, please log on to http://nbcam.org/.

Dreamy Gelato & Chocolates' New Website

Our website is finally live. We are so excited and pleased with the final product. The website was developed by Ben Frye at http://www.reeleffects.com/. This is just phase one of our site (some pages are still under construction), the next phase is to have online ordering capabilities. Please check out our new site.

http://www.dreamygelato.com/

Handmade Caramel

Our caramel turtle truffles continue to be a huge success. I love to see our customers bite into the truffle and the caramel runs onto the side of their months, caramel flows on their fingers and they close their eyes. Deep inside, I know they are truly satisfied. To put the icing on the cake, most customers lick the remaining caramel off their fingers.


To ensure the highest quality, we make our caramel on site. We like to crunch pecans and add them to the caramel inside the truffle. Finally, we add a whole pecan on top for a touch of elegance.

DELICIOUS!

Lemiga Soiree 2008 - Elegance

Dreamy Gelato and Chocolates was one of the many talented vendors that showcased at Lemiga Events 2nd Annual Open House Soiree on August 24th. These photos are courtesy of Altmix Photography.

Handmade Dark Chocolate Truffles with Dark Chocolate Ganache Hand Painted in Navy Blue and Purple

Old Hollywood Glam - Custom Truffles Hand Dusted with Gold Finish

"I do" - One of our "Best Sellers", Raspberry Dark Chocolate Ganache Covered in Dark Chocolate Customized with the Two Most Memorable Words.

Modern & Sophisticated - Delicious Mint Chocolate Truffles with a Faux Crimson Red Finish

Since we hand make everything onsite at Dreamy Gelato & Chocolates, we enjoy creating customized chocolates for our clients.

Our Story

It’s Gelato Time!

This was the comment an excited American father shouted as he and his two young kids exited the Vatican in Rome. For a moment, I felt the father was more excited about enjoying the exceptional Italian desert than the kids, but then the kids started cheering and chanting “It’s Gelato Time”. Fortunately, my family was able to experience this event firsthand since we were leaving the Vatican walking behind the chanting family. My husband, my son and I looked at each other and started to laugh with joy. My 2 year-old daughter had no idea why we were laughing, but that did not stop her from laughing during this festive moment. This was the moment I needed to finalize my decision to start Dreamy Gelato & Chocolates.

A beautiful view from the Vatican

Before we visited Rome, I was debating starting a gelato and chocolate business. Unfortunately, starting my own business was not part of my immediate plans. I was working as an US expat in London for a successful company. I had the best boss and my family was enjoying living abroad. One day while working in Folkestone, England, I was invited to go to lunch. After lunch, we stopped at a local gelato shop. I had no idea what gelato was, but it looked like traditional ice cream so I ordered two flavors. The moment I tasted the gelato, I knew traditional ice cream was a thing of the past. The gelato was full of flavor. To add to my enjoyment, I learned the addictive treat was low fat. I thought to my self, this desert is an oxymoron….intense flavor, but low fat. This moment was the birth of Dreamy Gelato.

My favorite gelateria in Folkestone, England

The addition of chocolates to the business model came when I visited Tenterten, England. There was a quaint chocolate shop located on the High Street. The chocolates there were handmade with exceptional ingredients. When I tasted the truffles, I wondered what I had been eating for so many years in boxes labeled “chocolate truffles”. To my excitement, the owner agreed to train me to make his chocolates. This was the birth of Dreamy Gelato & Chocolates. However, I did not plan for it to become an immediate reality until I heard the chanting that hot day in Rome.
To ensure we made the best gelato and chocolate, we traveled across Europe to conduct research. We traveled from Brussels to Ireland, Italy to Germany, and Amsterdam to France. We trained in Italy to make gelato and England to make chocolates.

Gelato training in Southern Italy

As part of our procurement, we import some of our ingredients like Madagascan vanilla beans, Sicilian pistachios, French purees and Swiss chocolate. However, we source our milk and other produce from local farmers. My visit to Ireland inspired our hot chocolates which is made with molten chocolate and homemade whipped cream. All of our products are handmade on site daily.

After three months open, I continue to enjoy hearing patrons young and old chanting “It’s Gelato Time” as they enter my shop.