Boxes for chocolates, lined up, row after
row, waiting to be filled with hand-dipped
fresh chocolates for Christmas.
Many wonderful varieties, creams, toffees,
caramels, truffles, each one fabulously
delicious.
That's what you will find in this little
family owned and run candy shop in
Salt Lake City, Utah
at 1479 S. Main Street.
Condie's Candies - hand-dipped since 1924
is a seasonal business that is in it's fourth generation.
It was first started by George Charles Phillipps who
specialized in European caramels and roasting nuts.
(One little interesting fact is that Dad is a first cousin
to Thomas S. Monson, President of the Church
of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day-Saints and he
orders chocolates from them every year!)
Besides the smell of chocolate that greets you as you
enter, they have fun little sayings about chocolate
upstairs in the store part. I love this one!
The breakfast quote needs to hand in my kitchen!
Downstairs is where the production is done.
This bevy of beauties are three sisters and
one sister-in-law that are busy little elves
at this time of year creating centers, dipping,
boxing and wrapping nearly round the clock
to meet the Christmas demand.
From left to right we have Pam (their sister-in-law),
Shelly, Nanette and Karen.
They are proof that eating tons of chocolate
keeps you thin and beautiful!
First we toured everything. This is
the yummiest place - the packing
room.
Then they were kind enough even at this super
busy time of year to open up their
shop and let an amateur like me try a hand at
professional dipping!
Pulling my hair back and donning the
black apron that everyone wears, I dive in.
(Don't be afraid to get a little dirty when you
dip chocolate. It is so smooth and silky, it
feels wonderful!)
Geri, the matriarch and owner
(with her husband Phil)
just turned
80 and still dips - and she
is a fast professional - a quick
flick of the wrist
and a touch to the paper, then
a quick initial written in chocolate to identify
the variety and she is at it again.
I have been dipping for 30 years and
I felt like a total klutz next to her.
(But notice the pan of dipped centers
by my side - I slowly dipped all of those!)
Aunt Linda specializes in the nuts and toffees
filling tray after tray of wonderful chocolates.
She is very fast too.
Condies has had its ups and downs. About 15
years ago they had a fire and the fireman was
sent in to rescue the original hand written
recipes (pictured above with
charred edges). He found the recipe book
floating in the water, soaking wet. They pulled
the recipe book apart. There were no recipes
on the pages anymore, but as they dried the
words reappeared. You wouldn't believe it,
but these are still the only copies available.
Hopefully someone will get them written down
on a computer so they won't be nearly lost again.
All of the original equipment survived the fire and
was transported to a new building. On the left is
one of their copper cooking kettles and the burner.
On the right is an old piece of equipment that cuts
the 10 pound blocks of chocolate.
They use Guittard chocolate which is put into vats
in the middle of the table to melt and to stay warm.
There are gas burners underneath each vat that melt
the chocolate and keep them warm.
The dipping process begins by Karen
scooping up the warm chocolate
onto
marble slabs to warm up the marble and to
cool down the chocolate. Dipping chocolate
needs to be tempered, or brought up to melting
point and then brought back down to around 90
degrees so that it will create the wonderful
shiny and crisp coating that we expect from
fine chocolates.
As the chocolate cools additional
warm chocolate is scooped out and
added to keep the chocolate at a
perfect temperature. It was a great
way to dip.
There are two dipping stations on the
side of each of 3 vats of chocolate.
I had never dipped on marble before. That went
well, but try to write a cursive L (for lemon creams)
backwards and from bottom to top. Only a few
of mine had recognizable Ls!
(They will use them
for seconds - to give visitors!)
We were told that no one has ever been
allowed to come and dip on the factory
floor before. My good friends Wally and
Annette are relatives and Wally got me
the invitation. I felt so honored. Our
good friend Rachel (in the pink) also got
to come along and give chocolate dipping
a try.
Wally and Annette's twin daughters Grace and
Esther love to come and work at Condies and
want to start learning to dip.
They usually spend most of their time in
the boxing room (sampling as they go along!)
Hey - that is half the fun of working in a chocolate
factory - you get to sample.
Meanwhile there is always something
cooking in the kitchen. Nanette is the cook.
She has all of the recipes in her head
(or mostly she says.)
There are three
main ingredients in the kitchen -
butter, cream and sugar!
No wonder every single
variety was absolutely delicious.
I LOVE chocolate and love to try
different chocolates everywhere I go. With
every manufacturer of chocolates, I like some
varieties and some I dislike. You might say I am
a bit of a chocolate snob.
I can honestly say
I love every flavor they have (and it seems like we
got to try most of them! Plus I bought a 2 lb. box
and have been snacking on them.)
Bubbling hot toffee is poured on
the cooling table.
One of my favorite things was getting to
see all of the specialty equipment
they have, like this special roller that scores
the toffee to make breaking into pieces
easier.
That is a huge batch of toffee,
ready to be dipped.
This is one of the greatest little machines.
The hot fondant (for cream centers) is
poured into this machine that was patented
in 1901. Cool water fills the chamber to
quickly cool the fondant. After about
an hour, when the fondant is cooled, the
machine begins to stir it.
They wanted to know if I made my own
cream centers at home. I said yes and they
wanted to know how long I had to stir it.
I told them it was usually 40 minutes to
an hour. Sure enough, that is how long
their machine stirs it. This would be
amazing, but one batch makes enough
centers to fill 4 cardboard boxes - a bit more
than I could use.
From when the door first opened and the incredible
smell of chocolate rushed out
into the open air
to washing the chocolate off our hands and
carrying our hand-dipped and hand-boxed
chocolates out to the car, it was an
incredible experience
and opportunity.
Thank you to all of my dear new
friends
at Condies.
You can order Condie's chocolates
online at
It was such a wonderful experience,
quite different from my home dipping.
To see my post on
and to see how I dip at home and my little elf who got into
the candy dipping from last year,
click the above.
These are some of the varieties I usually make.
We just started making centers this week.
I will be posting this with
