Sweet Spot

Local chocolatier finds her niche with Belle Oak Chocolates

Haley Egbert grew up making candies. Every year at Christmas, her mother and grandmother made sweet confections like divinity, toffee, fudge and caramels for friends and neighbors.

“That was always a fun tradition for me,” Egbert says. “I’ve always loved being in the kitchen, especially if it involves sugar.”

While working with chocolate started as a sweet fascination, Egbert eventually turned it into a business, Belle Oak Chocolates, offering a menu of artisan bonbons, chocolate bars and truffles.

Dipped in chocolate

As an adult, Egbert started making her own treats to give to others.

“I was trying all these recipes, and I realized I don’t actually love all these candies, but I really love chocolate. So, I was like, ‘How can I make these and put more chocolate on it?’” she says. “So, I started learning how to temper chocolate and dip caramels. That’s how I got started dipping my caramels in chocolate because I was like, ‘They’re good, but I think they would be better if they were dipped in chocolate.’”

Egbert is not one to do things halfway. She researched the chemistry and techniques of working with chocolate. She learned how to properly temper chocolate — that process of melting, heating, cooling and reheating chocolate so the finished product has a glossy shine with a crisp snap and resists melting in your hand.

Egbert was already in deep when her husband, Robert, bought her the book “Chocolates & Confections,” by Culinary Institute of America professor and certified master baker Peter Greweling. The gift inspired Egbert even more. She began dipping everything in chocolate.

“Once I got that book and started experimenting, then my friends and neighbors started getting really good Christmas goodies,” Egbert says.

By the time Egbert and her family, who are members of Wiregrass Electric Cooperative, settled in Dothan in 2016, she was already making chocolate candies for friends. The family’s first year in Dothan, she made treats for her children’s teachers. People began asking if they could buy the chocolates as gifts for others. It snowballed from there.

Initially, she sold her candies under the name Handcrafted by Haley. By 2021, Egbert adopted a new business name, Belle Oak Chocolates. The name was inspired by the large southern oak trees prominent in each location where her family has lived.

While it started as a cottage food business working from the family’s kitchen, Egbert eventually moved the business into a custom chocolate house built behind their Dothan home. There’s a cold room, a painting room and a storage pantry along with the kitchen itself.

Egbert uses a Swiss couverture chocolate for her candies. Couverture chocolate uses pure cocoa butter and a higher amount of it, and it is ground finer during production. Couverture chocolate melts into a thinner liquid, making it better for dipping compared to other baking chocolates.

Outside of the chocolate, Egbert tries to use local pecans and peanuts.

Seasonal business

The candy business is seasonal even for Egbert.

Christmas is her busiest time, and she starts working on orders in September. Valentine’s Day, Easter and Mother’s Day are also big times for chocolate orders.

She changes up flavors depending on the season, but her salted caramels are her biggest sellers throughout the year.

Summer in Alabama isn’t very chocolate-friendly, so she usually takes those months off from orders.

“Chocolate behaves best in cool, dry weather and that is not summer in Alabama,” she says.

Egbert also offers chocolate experiences for small groups. Guests can make chocolate bark and rolled truffle balls or paint chocolate.

Currently, Egbert sells to local customers through belleoakchocolates.com. She does custom orders, such as wedding favors and client gifts for companies.

She doesn’t ship chocolate because it requires careful packaging to prevent melting. Egbert’s candies don’t have a lot of preservatives, they have a shorter shelf life — typically 30 days for ganache and cream-based candies and longer for nut-based candies.

The fun part

There’s a lot of chemistry behind working with chocolate. Egbert takes online courses and attends annual conferences to learn all she can.

Getting the texture of chocolate right is no simple feat. Different sugars affect the composition differently. Even the water and fat levels must have the right balance. Temperature is important throughout the entire process. Layers have to cool and stabilize, so Egbert typically spends days working on a batch of candies.

Painting is the fun part. It’s also the first step in Egbert’s artistic bonbons. Colored cocoa butter is used so as not to change the taste, and Egbert paints the chocolate molds with an airbrush before she even pours the first chocolate layer. The cabinets in her painting room are filled with bottles of colored cocoa butter.

“That’s the really fun part, at least when I’m making small batches,” she says. “I’ve always loved art and artistic things, so when I found out you could actually paint on chocolate, I was doubly excited.”