The sweet life

10:23am Saturday 22nd March 2008

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SOME people will have a special reason to gobble up the chocolate eggs tomorrow. For them, it is the end of Lent.

Anyone daft enough to give up chocolate for this long (six weeks and five days, but who's counting?) will relish Easter Sunday as that sweet moment when the velvety smooth taste of chocolate will again be permitted.

Personally, I can't wait. But before I turned back to the dark side, there was one more temptation thrust in my way - a visit to a chocolatier.

Choc Affair, in Naburn, is the brain child of Linda Barrie, chocolate fan and mother-of-two. It began three years ago when, armed with bowls of sugar, chocolate and soya milk, she experimented with sweet treats for her daughters Mariah, now 12, and Ella, ten, who were allergic to milk.

"I could never find any chocolate for them and they just wanted to eat the things their friends did," she says.

"The main thing they wanted was hot chocolate, so I designed the hot chocolate on a stick and it went from there."

This chocolate drink is a pyramid of dark chocolate with a dusting of raw cane sugar on a stick, which dissolves into a delicious rich drink when swirled in hot milk.

It is Choc Affair's biggest seller, and just as nice licked warm off the stick.

Her lollipops - large circles of milk chocolate dotted with Jelly Tots, Smarties and Dolly Mixture - are selling well; and her Little Chunks of Love, strawberries, raspberries, blackcurrants and blueberries encased in bite-sized pieces of milk or dark chocolate, are divine.

For Linda, who recently gave up her day-job selling plastic surgery to concentrate on her business full-time, all this really is a dream come true.

"I can't believe that it all escalated from messing about with the children," she said.

"From the start though I knew it would do well. Even if people hadn't liked it initially, I would still have had to go for it because I knew it was so nice."

At first, Linda made the chocolates in her first-floor kitchen, which overlooks Naburn marina, and sold them online. But thanks to the success of the business, the tempering machines have moved downstairs, where boxes and bars of chocolate, bags of sweets and Easter eggs can be stored in cool temperatures.

A tempting smell of rich, melting chocolate wafts along the hallway and I follow it to find rivers of chocolate tempering on wheels.

"I wasn't going to make the chocolate myself at first, I was going to pay someone else to do it for me," she says. "But it didn't work out that way and at the very last minute I had to get a machine and get started and I was flying by the seat of my pants.

"Suddenly I had to source where I would buy blocks of chocolate to work with and work with a designer about packaging and decide what the chocolate drink was going to look like.

"What is nice is that everyone in this business is so friendly and helpful; there are no secrets."

Her first pitch was to a deli in Harrogate, where she expected to be shown the door; "I wandered in feeling lost and nervous and when he said he'd take it I went out feeling ten feet tall."

Since then, Henshelwoods Deli, de'Clare Deli, Ainsty Farm Shop, The Balloon Tree, The Farmers Cart and Café Harlequin have all taken her products and online orders have grown beyond belief.

But while she is ambitious about the future, the effect of her business on the environment is a cause close to her heart. For example, she is developing recyclable packaging and recently won the right to use the Fairtrade logo on her chocolate, which makes her proud.

"Having children makes you more aware of the consequences of your actions," she says. "If I want to eat cheap chocolate someone else is paying a high price for it at the other end of the scale."

Until now, Linda has not been able to visit many shows, as chocolate and summer sun don't mix. But with extra time on her hands, she hopes to expand Choc Affair to sell nationally.

She is also experimenting with alcoholic chocolate, and is always on the lookout for new products.

"My family and friends love coming over because I always try things out on them," she says. "The children love it too. They're always asking whether I've got any mistakes' when they get home from school."

To buy Linda's chocolates or inquire about new products, log on to www.choc-affair.com or email linda@chocaffair.com