This year coming could see some fantastic new steps for us, although we wish to remain small and artisanal in our approach, our aim is to expand our production premises to allow room for some new specialist equipment. ‘Bean to bar’ production could take us to the leading edge of high-end chocolate, giving us the opportunity to make our chocolate exactly the way we want it using the finest ethically traded ingredients. Very few producers of chocolate in the UK are actually making their chocolate from bean, but there is an uprising in bean to bar producers which we believe will continue to flourish alongside the growth of the market for real chocolate in the UK.

In other news we are busy with some wonderful products for this years burns night, and of course Valentines day 2012. For this years burns supper we have gone all out Scottish and have made chocolate haggis, ‘Iron Brew’ chocolates, whisky chocolates and in a new collaboration with the Caledonian Bewery we have some fantastic 80 /- beer chocolates! For Valentines day this year we have a wide range of chocolate hearts, including our new filled hearts, made with Salted Caramel, Rose & Champagne, or Raspberry & Ginger centres. We also do some great chocolate high heels, or valentines messages in chocolate, alongside our classic range of produce there is something for everyone. Come by and see us at 123 Bruntsfield Place, open 7 days, or at the farmers markets, or search us out at one of our many stockists across the UK.

We are saying our fond farewells to Laurie at Bruntsfield this month, she has done us a marvellous job as manager and we wish her well for the new ventures ahead in Amsterdam. We have seen some new staff coming onboard too, and at one point we counted no less than thirteen nationalities working together, so a big welcome to all the new starts. Positions at The Chocolate Tree are much in demand, but if you have something to offer, either in Edinburgh or Haddington, please feel free to hand in a C.V.

Pam’s Happy Hour collection is also now available, this is an exquisite selection of chocolates based on classic summer cocktails. This heady concoction of delicious treats has been carefully developed throughout the summer by the extremely talented Pam Coetzee. We can now present the gift box complete with 6 unique flavours. Limited edition, so if you like the sound of these please get your order in before they are all gone! … Sorry they are now all gone !

Our time off recently has mostly been spent gathering wild fruits from the East Lothian countryside. We are preparing all manner of juices, jellies and alcohols to bring to our hedgerow collection this year, although more immediately we have been using these wild ingredients to make a range of ice creams and sorbets! Our wild gelato range includes a stunning hawthorn sorbet, zesty sea-buckthorn ripple, healthy elderberry sorbet, refreshing elderflower sorbet and a wonderful elderberry ripple. All of these can be enjoyed at the cafe in Bruntsfield, or can be bought in 500ml tubs at the farmers markets. We have just joined the Stockbride farmers market, every Sunday from 10am – 5pm, alongside a range of some of the best local producers including great breads, meats and fish, coffee, cheese and much more, don’t hesitate to come down to the square and show them your support.

Thank you to all of our customers for supporting us and staff for making it all possible. We had a great time at the Edinburgh festival back in August, such a wonderful range of customers coming through the cafe and unique experiences. It was thoroughly exhausting for all the staff, as we weren’t quite prepared for such a busy month, but we have improved some of our techniques for managing the busy periods, and if we keep busy we can provide more employment and do our bit to help during this rocky economic ‘climate’. We are proud to welcome, Nicholas, Leila and Damian on board our team.

We have just returned from the Scone game fair, what a busy weekend! 3 days of brilliant sunshine and a massive interest in our stall in the food tent this year. The food hall represents such a great selection of produce from Scotland’s larder.

Our latest creations are mainly centred around the ice cream, we kicked off at the end of Easter with our new gelato room, producing fine quality Italian style Gelato. Gelato is not just the Italian name for ice cream, it’s a specialised Italian method of production, there are even Gelato University courses in Italy! The machinery used is much more refined, churning the mixtures slower to reduce the air content and producing a much better result than most ice cream machinery. The recipes are very carefully balanced, using less cream and more milk to create a really smooth, less fattening product. Our Gelato is now available in store! come and see us at 123 Bruntsfield Place, or at the Edinburgh farmers market to experience real Italian gelato right here in Edinburgh.

We have also been busy with our chocolate selection, Pam has been working on a summer cocktail selection! We are calling it the ‘Happy Hour’ collection, so far we have had a Margarita, and a Mojito, both absolutely delicious. The Mojito involves one of our latest pectin jelly centres, this is a vegetarian alternative to gelatine, and has such a lovely smooth texture. Look out for our Happy Hour collection box at the end of the summer!

We also took a short trip out to the Isle of Gigha Music festival, and set up our gelato cafe, it was so well received and the festival was a great success. We ended up cycling down to the village hall in the evening and despite some ferocious island midges we were very popular with the dancers coming out of the hall to cool down! To keep up to date with all of our latest products and adventures stay tuned with our Facebook and Twitter pages!

Many thanks to all our customers for your ongoing support, it’s a pleasure doing what we do and we do it all for you! If you have any feedback please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

The giant hens have been laying again! we have released our selection of speciality eggs this year..

A box without hinges, key or lid,
Yet golden treasure inside is hid!

We have a truffle egg, available in milk, white & dark, patterned with a large swirl with 9 handcrafted chocolates inside. There is the pinstripe organic egg, a large fun egg with a mixture of mini eggs & bunnies inside. The conoisseur’s egg, this one is produced from four of the worlds finest chocolates, couverture from french expert chocolate makers Valrhona. Then there is the kids organic egg, a smaller egg available in milk, white or dark chocolate with mini eggs & bunnies inside. We also have a wide variety of mini eggs perfect for hiding, Easter Hares (bunnies!), and other goodies. All available in store at Bruntsfield, stocks are limited..

Its been a great start to the summer, what incredible weather! This has worked out in perfect time for our ice cream launch.. Now available at the farmers market and at 123 Bruntsfield Place is our own gelato! Gelato is Italian for ice cream, but it’s a different breed from the ice cream we know here in Britain, gelato has less cream & more milk, giving it less fat, it also has a lot less air than conventional ice cream, giving a more satisfying feel & flavour. We have began our range with some traditional ice creams including pistachio, hazelnut, stracciatella, black forest ripple, vanilla. We have also enthusiastically introduced our chocolate sorbet, this is such a pure alternative to chocolate ice cream, and we have made a sea salt & caramel version as well as a chocolate chilli sorbet! We also do a range of pure fruit sorbets, made with minimum 50% fruit content! Our gelato can also be found down at the Beach House cafe on the Portobello promenade.

Have a wonderful Easter weekend everybody, and thanks for all your support. A list of summer events to be posted soon…

We hope you are all having a wonderful & romantic February, as we see out the remaining winter months it’s a great time to give affections to loved ones providing the inner warmth needed to see us through to the springtime.

Our range this year included some lovely chocolate hearts packed with a range of some of our most aphrodisiacal treats. This months special is the passionfruit caramel; a dark lustrious heart enrobing a lusty inner fruit centre. Also adorning our shelves are the infamous chocolate high heels, a pinnacle in decadence, and a charming gift.

We have also been collaborating with Penhaligons this February, creating a very special selection of two of the most wonderful perfume inspired chocolates; Amaranthine & Gardenia. To read more about our unfolding & exciting collaboration you can read through this enlightening interview with Alex of Penhaligons: http://www.arosebeyondthethames.blogspot.com/

One other notes this month we have been working hard to develop a range of soft centred bars, the first of which to be released is the sea salt & caramel; a rich dark chocolate wrapped around a golden liquid caramel, infused with the fine sea salt. This bar is like the seductive sister to the harder sea salt & caramel organic bar, it’s been getting some great feedback.

Our Single Origin range is now undergoing a reinvention, we are working with Thierry Castel of Valhrona, the finest french chocolate makers, to select the perfect range of single origin to provide a stunning variety of flavour and character in our finished product. We now see many mass market producers jumping on the ‘Single Origin’ bandwagon, creating inferior bars that sell themselves on the basis that different countries produce better or worse chocolate. This is quite wrong, a chocolate shoud not be judged purely on it’s country of origin! the quality of the chocolate depends on many different factors; the growing conditions, type of bean and of course ulitmatley the production process. We hope to release a range of bars that will amaze and tantalise the tastebuds!

A big thanks to all the staff who have worked hard this month to keep the kitchen and the staff running smoothly, especially to Laurie & Josie who have been doing a wonderful job as assistant managers for the shop. We are always working to provide a friendly and welcoming atmosphere, and any feedback is always appreciated if you feel willing to share it with us.

Rolling on to Spring we have started to focus on our Easter range including the famous handcrafted chocolate bunnies & delightful Easter eggs, coming soon!..

We hope you all enjoyed the winter feasts & time to relax over the Christmas holidays. This month we have been gathering ourselves for 2011, with an emphasis this year not on growth and expansion (bigger is better), but rather turning our attention to product quality, local distribution & customer service. In the words of British economist E.F. Schumacher; ‘Small is Beautiful’.

Ye Pow’rs wha mak mankind your care,
And dish them out their bill o’ fare,
Auld Scotland wants nae skinking ware
That jaups in luggies;
But, if ye wish her gratefu’ prayer,
Gie her a haggis!

We have been celebrating our burns night with these minature haggii, made of a peppery seasoned dark ganache with a light marzipan skin; A great accompaniment to the after dinner whisky.

Alternatively, we have graced our shelves with a lesser known Scottish, dare I say delicacy.. Iron Brew. These hyper sweet chocolates are made with authentic Scottish ingredients; but if not to your tastes then don’t write them off completely, as Iron Brew is a pretty good medicine – when taken as a cure for a hang over.

More new products to come in 2011 will be a range of decadent smooth filled chocolate bars, our experimental recipes this week for these have included sea salted caramel, ginger whisky & a cherry liquer. If you have any suggestions or comments please feel free to let us know. The shop is also now stocked with a variety of beautiful Valentines day produce.

Here we are in December already as the autumn leaves us behind and winter beckons. We had a marvellous time this autumn with an abundance of wild foraging to work into our new hedgerow collection, this will be available from the shop early – mid December, stocks are limited to the supplies of preserved wild ingredients, at least until next year! This collection of earthy and fruity delightful chocolates will bring a toasting warmth to the winter days ahead.

The Hedegrow collection was initiated & brought to fruition by chocolatier & local food enthusiast Ian Copley:

Well it’s been a long time coming and there have been a few hiccups on the way but you can now buy our “Hedgerow Collection”, exclusively available from the Bruntsfield Shop & at Edinburgh Farmers Market, while stocks last. Numbers are limited and there will not be any more till a similar time next year, you can’t rush Mother Nature!

I have long been an enthusiast for local food and this led me quite naturally to foraging. My work as a chocolatier is fulfilling and satisfying, but there has always been a certain nagging in my mind about working with a food, which is not only not local, but is impossible to grow on this continent! This is what led to the idea of combining chocolate with ingredients I could be sure were local…. because I’d picked them myself! Putting together a box of wild chocolates required a considerable amount of organisation; seasons for each ingredient are limited and I had to make sure I had enough of everything I needed and then preserve them so I could present them together. Due to various mishaps (including abandoning my favourite Spearmint truffle..well till next spring anyway), I reduced my original ambitious plan for a box of 12 to a range of 6, and here they are.

Gooseberry and Elderflower

Sweet and tangy, a frothy burst of summer. Gooseberries picked from the

East Lothian hedges on my cycle to work and then frozen. Elderflowers from trees growing out of an old cow byre next to my house, preserved as cordial.

Sloe Gin

A great British classic. Milk shell, 55% centre. A sloe gin made in 2009, a very good year for berries, I made about 4 gallons plus some sloe wine.

Bramble & Cardamon

A Chocolate Tree classic given the wild truffle treatment with brambles picked out of the bushes on route to work. A strong 74% dark chocolate shell with a sweeter milk chocolate centre.

Dandelion and Burdock

A nostalgic triumph. Tangy, rooty and definitely British. Also looks a bit like a burr! As soon as the idea for a D&B truffle entered my mind I knew it would be a winner and, I hope you agree. Burdock, and it’s characteristic burrs, are a defining feature of my (considerably overgrown) garden and in the autumn it’s basically impossible to do anything outside the house without picking up a collection in your jumper, or socks, or hair, or spaniel. So eating the roots of these enormous plants is a minor revenge. Dandelions are also abundant in the lawn so this was the easiest foraging imaginable, well apart from the digging bit (burdock roots can easily reach a meter long!)

Wild Cherry

Homemade cherry brandy ganache hides a sweet cerise surprise. I have a very prolific patch of cherry trees near my house, they produce beautiful black cherries which I pick by climbing, this is also good for keeping an eye out for the gamekeeper. I made a cherry brandy liqueur (highly recommended) and a cherry jam.

Wild Mushroom

Dark as a forest mulch. Earthy, rich, deep and almost savoury. Ceps combined with Ugandan 80%. I’ve always loved picking mushrooms, ever since I was introduced to it many years ago, although at first my motives were experimental rather than culinary, but while I have picked many mushrooms over the years I’ve always had trouble finding ceps…..until this year. It was an outrageously prolific year for these penny buns and the jars and jars of dried specimens on

my shelves testify to this fact. This is definitely my favourite in the

collection.

Ian Copley 01.12.10

New and very exciting is our collaboration with Penhaligon’s. Founded in 1870, Penhaligons is one of the few“true fragrance houses of the world” their scents are absolutely sublime, made with the finest rare ingredients and a real passion for authentic fragrance. We have teamed up with Penhaligon’s of George Street to create six handcrafted chocolates based on the notes in six different Penhaligon’s fragrances. The results are sumptuous and stylish; chocolates blended with delicacy and care, reflecting the subtle balance of accords and drydown in each fragrance. They will appear in Penhaligon’s George St. and our own boutique in Bruntsfield in early December.

The Bruntsfield chocolate boutique has flowered in its first year! Thankyou to everyone who has come in to enjoy it with us, it’s been a brilliant pleasure to open up in Bruntsfield and attract such a lovely array of people. Special thanks to all the staff who have worked so hard with us behind the scenes to make it all happen! We are really busy at the moment preparing all the Christmas produce; mulled wine & winterspice chocolates in this week. Father Christmas & Snowmen now on the shelves, along with a variety of attractive fully-packed hampers, the perfect gift.. Make mine the single origin hamper, that’s 11 different varieties of single origin chocolate bars! including Original Bean, Amadei, Grenada & Duffy’s. I’m nibbling on an Amadei Chuao bar just now, delectable smooth dark chocolate, perfect on a cold winters night beside the warm fire.

Wow! So much has happened this year! Sorry for taking ages to make any updates to the website, we have been so busy since the opening of the chocolaterie / café / shop in Bruntsfield. Thanks to everyone who has helped us along the way, it’s been a grand opening, creating an ongoing home for The Chocolate Tree in one of the city’s most enjoyable areas. Come by and enjoy the delights, open 7 days a week, providing an ongoing exploration into the diverse and wonderful world of chocolate.

Hooray for summer! As I write this our little ice cream machine whirs away in the background producing for the market. Come and see us at the farmers market every Saturday 9am – 2pm for our usual array, and now serving very lovely chocolate ice cream and sorbet. Many thanks to the organisers of Taste festival, Meadows festival, Gigha music festival, Scone game fair and The Royal Highland Show. Yet to come and with great anticipation are The Big Tent festival: 23rd – 25th July, and Traquair Fair: 31st July – 1st August. Tickets for The Big Tent are available from us at the shop in Bruntsfield.

Our ganache experimentations in the kitchen over the past few months has been wild and yet careful, new favourites are the sea salted caramels, absinthe & peppermint, blackcurrant, mango & chilli, beer, blueberry, wild mushroom, rosemary & seasalt, we have even created a bit of a marmite truffle liking amongst some customers, it’s strangely pleasing, and I wouldn’t have said I was the worlds biggest marmite fan, until now.

The shop in Bruntsfield also offers a variety of some truly artisan cakes, made with care and using some of the best fine and locally sourced ingredients. Friederike’s talents on this side of the kitchen have flowered since we opened the shop, her baking is highly creative yet almost scientific in its attention to details and flavours. Drop by to indulge in a slice or share one with friends.

3 new bars coming up, look out for these in the shops:

Rooibos Chai

A mellow blend of tea & spice, blended carefully with smooth organic milk chocolate.

White Cocoa Nib

A contrast of sweet indulgent organic white chocolate with flavoursome, earthy dark Ecuadorian nibs.

Dark Forest

The Black Forest’s big brother, a fruity explosion in extra dark chocolate: brambles, blueberries and raspberries.

Unfortunately we have seen a slight increase in prices this year, all of our raw ingredients seem to be going up, and the cost of running a premise in this part of Edinburgh pretty astronomical. We are proud to be swimming against the tide, having provided 12 new part-time positions and 1 new fulltime position with us since we opened the shop, and managing (if only just!) to keep the whole thing stable. We are still trying to offer the best value for money for a handcrafted organic product, and hope you find our prices pretty good in comparison.

Many thanks to all the new staff! We have seen some amazing characters come through and help us out at the shop and the kitchen, also some fond farewells to those moving on their next station. We receive dozens of C.Vs, and are sorry we don’t have more positions available. If you are interested in a position with us then please email me with an extraordinary explanation of what you would bring to our little enterprise!

Cacao nibs and beans

Although we don’t make our own chocolate from bean – be wary of chocolatiers claiming to ‘make their chocolate’, as what most of us do is source and work with fine chocolate – we have sourced some amazing beans and nibs. These are organic Ecuadorian Trinitario Arriba beans and nibs. Use them for smoothies, eat them raw, roast them with game, sprinkle them on fruit, and even make your own raw chocolate with them! This ‘super food’ is chocolate in one of its most raw states, and is incredibly good for the body and mind. Suggested reading: Naked Chocolate

Chocolate makers, who do make their own chocolate from bean, are a different breed and one day we would like to count ourselves among them, but to invest in such an operation is clearly going to take time, unless we bury ourselves in debt, those we recommend trying chocolate from are: Micheal Cluizel, Amadei, Bonnat, Willy Harcourt, The Mast Brothers, Original Beans and The Grenada Chocolate Company. We’ll be considering sourcing some of these for the shop soon… In the meantime many thanks for supporting us – we hope you are enjoying the produce, if you have any suggestions, ideas, complaints or compliments please feel free to get in touch.

A big thanks to everyone who enjoyed our space at the festivals, we had a great time! Hard work but worthwhile, we came through safe and sound. Here is a little video from the Big Tent Festival at Falkland Palace:

We brushed with Royalty at the Gathering in Holyrood Park, Edinburgh, Camilla Parker Bowles has been at one with the Ginger Buddha.

The summer festivals are now fading away in our rear view mirror, we look to the road with a tear in our eye but a firm foot to the pedal, steering us forward into the Christmas festivities to come…

Welcoming Kendall Ross to our team! All the way from the Appalachian countryside of Pennsylvania, we bumped into him touring the festivals bringing ancient knowledge and roots tradition back to it’s origins in Scotland.

We’ll be exhibiting at Foodies, Assembly rooms, Edinburgh. You can catch us the BBC Good Food Show, SECC in Glasgow. We’ll be dotted about all over the place at Christmas fayres and of course down braving the elements at our regular spots in the farmers markets, new to our farmers markets attendance are Howgate and Balerno, both on the outskirts of town. Come and support these community organized events, helping to bring sense to city society. See you there!