Chocolate magic

Chocolate and Valentine's Day are as close as two lovers, a pairing fraught with as much tension and tenderness as the most passionate relationship. So it follows that during this time of year confectioners experience a tumultuous affair of the chocolate heart.

"These are very intense days," said Frank Glaser, president and chief executive officer of James' Candy Co., which makes Bayard's chocolates, as the production line near his Atlantic City office rolled out raspberry cream-filled hearts headed to stores in Cherry Hill and Cinnaminson.

Intense. Like amour.

Local chocolatiers spend weeks gearing up for Sunday's lovefest, the holiday that produces the biggest sales of boxed chocolates.

While it's unclear how candy and Valentine's Day first hooked up, you need only listen to an expert talking about bonbons, chocolates, pralinés - call them what you will - to understand why they drip with romance.

"They are small, they are beautiful, they are intensely flavored. They are sweet and yet bitter," says Peter Greweling, chocolate guru and professor of baking and pastry arts at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y.

"They are so sensuous," Greweling says. "I suppose they are exactly the whole metaphor to life and love."

The National Confectioners Association's Chocolate Council predicts this year's Valentine's Day chocolate sales will reap just under $1 billion, which would be slightly more than in 2009.

Some higher-priced, gourmet chocolatiers have seen their income suffer in the stumbling economy, but overall, chocolates are fairly recession-proof, says Susan Smith, senior vice president of the confectioners association.

"What we've generally found is that chocolates are a small indulgence, a little pleasure, so people still get them," Smith says.

And that is good for the people in the Philadelphia region who still make them, who live and love the life of chocolatiering.

Tony Walter Jr. owns Lore's Chocolates, which has a store in Old City and a factory in the former Goldenberg's Peanut Chew plant in the Feltonville section. The Walters bought the company from the Lores 22 years ago.

For many people in this culinary art, chocolate-making is a family heirloom.

Bayard's Glaser, 61, is a fourth-generation candy maker (his family also produces James' and Fralinger's saltwater taffy), and daughter Lisa Glaser Whitley, 37, chief operating officer of the company, is the fifth.

Tony Walter's dad worked for decades at Goldenberg's and other candy makers, and continues to help make the Lore's chocolates. His mother works in the store, though his two younger sisters chose other careers.

Walter walks around the shop, pointing out the Valentine's hearts, the gift boxes wrapped in shiny tinfoil red.

But hearts aren't required for the holiday. Just as Walter explains that Lore's already has begun production for Easter and St. Patrick's Day treats, customer Beverley Al-Greene strides up to the Irish potato candies.

"I have to send them to California to my daughter," she explains. "I'm sending them to her for Valentine's Day."

Most of the large-scale production for Valentine's Day is done, though many chocolatiers will hand-dip strawberries in chocolate into the weekend.

Walter says Lore's began making Valentine's candy in mid-January. His shop's process is much like Bayard's and other candymakers':

The centers are prepared and, when still stiff, cut into squares. They travel along the conveyor belt of an enrober machine, which envelops each piece in chocolate. The candy finally is left to set, allowing the cream centers to soften to a velvety texture.

The chocolatier must make sure every part of the process is executed correctly. Good chefs must dote on their ingredients and environmental factors - temperature extremes can be ruinous.

"It is almost a relationship because you understand it and you know what it needs. The better you take care of it, the better it's going to look," says chef Greweling.

Done correctly, the candy will appeal to all five senses, from the snap of the chocolate when it's bitten into to its smooth texture and rich taste.

If you've been making chocolates long enough, customers become familiar for different holidays.

"You see the same faces every year," Walter says. "You know what they want."

Walter doesn't, however, always know why the customer is getting what he's getting - or for whom. Take this one man years back.

"Somebody came in and he purchased something. He told me, 'If you see me again, don't say anything,' " Walter recalls. The request didn't register with the busy Walter. "He came in later with a woman and I said, 'You again!' and he looked at me with daggers in his eyes."

Men are the main Valentine's Day customers, Glaser and Walter say. And the closer the holiday gets, the more desperate the men seem.

John Doyle, 41, doesn't meet most of those who buy chocolates from the company he owns with his wife, John & Kira's. Theirs is a small, gourmet confectionery that sells its products through the Internet or at farmers' markets. Its operation is also in the old Goldenberg building - Tony Walter is their landlord.

Valentine's Day follows Christmas as John & Kira's second most lucrative holiday. On one recent day, the business received 162 orders. At an average price of about $50 a box, that's more than $8,000 for the day.

"That's a good day for us," Doyle says.

A big day at Christmas is 320 orders; a midsummer's day is about 15. Chocolatiers see their business plummet in summer.

Popular this time of year is John & Kira's special "Bee My Lovebug Collection" of chocolate-covered, salted honey caramels decorated to resemble bees and dark chocolate, ganache-filled ladybugs.

Four workers making the exotic chocolates smile as one explains that each of the employees is in a different stage of romance. John & Kira's head chocolatier Jessica Newquist, 29, is married; another is engaged; a third is in a long-term relationship.

"I'm the token single coworker," says Lindsey Palmer, 27.

The four women, like Lore's Walter and Bayard's Glaser family, give candy for Valentine's Day - their friends and family expect it. Those friends and relatives are always happy to get it, unlike the misguided Christmas gift shoved to the back of the closet.

Says chocolate guru Greweling: "I don't remember anyone ever saying, 'Chocolate again?' "