Is being a chocolatier as good as it's cracked up to be? 3 Cape Cod candy makers weigh in

Scott Ghelfi loves chocolate so much he can’t sleep unless he’s had a taste before he goes to bed. Lucky for him he has plenty of choices at his fingertips at Ghelfi's Candies of Cape Cod on Main Street in Falmouth. He opened the shop in 1988 when he was just 25 years old. Ghelfi never intended to carry on the family tradition. He got a business degree, worked a few years, then went back to chocolates.

Ghelfi has been making candy since he was 10 years old when his parents owned Trahan's Candies across the street from his current store. The second-generation chocolatier says every workday is different, but his favorite part is making the candy with his assistant and other employees.

“It’s social, even though we’re working hard,” he said. “We always joke around. We have fun.”

Most enviable career

Having fun, making money, eating chocolate? What’s not to like? That’s probably why chocolatier came out as the most enviable career by 3,000 Bay Staters polled by HostingAdvice, a web hosting service provider.

Ghelfi spends his days in a shop redolent of chocolate, an array of choices lined up for customers. There are creams and truffles, fruit slices and turtles, caramels and bark in milk, white and dark chocolate in neat displays on one side of the narrow shop. Hundreds of penny candy choices line the opposite wall.

It might surprise people, Ghelfi said, but making candy is labor-intensive. The batches are heavy. There’s a lot of leaning and pulling. A day of candy making is like a day at the gym, he said.

Carol Cronin agrees. She and her husband, Rob, own Cape Cod Chocolatier in Centerville. “It’s a pretty physical job,” she said. “You're on your feet the whole time, except when doing online orders or answering emails.”

'Six months nonstop'

In an unusual twist for Cape Cod businesses, the winter is busier than the summer for the Cronins. During the holidays they can’t make enough pieces to satisfy customers. Once they got an order for 500 boxes of chocolates for Christmas. They sell out every Christmas, she said.

“We’re driven by all the holidays: Thanksgiving, Christmas, Valentine’s Day, Easter,” Cronin said. “It’s six months nonstop.”

Cronin likes making candy, a process that hasn’t changed much in 100 years, she said. They still cook centers in a copper kettle. They cool the candy, cut it and enrobe it, a process by which the candy goes through a waterfall of tempered chocolate.

There is no conveyor belt at Ben and Bill’s Chocolate Emporium on Main Street in Falmouth. Everything is hand dipped according to manager Jeannette Michaud. Five employees create hundreds of chocolate items for display in the 12,000-square-foot store. Customers are enveloped in the sweet smell of chocolate and surrounded by more than 300 confectionary choices. Tiffany-style lamps light the small store.

The chocolate items include varieties of milk and dark, vegan and sugar free. There are 21 vegan selections, 22 sugar-free selections, 15 fruit flavor slices and 10 varieties of fudge. Then there are licorice, gummy bear, jellybean and other candy selections to choose from. Popcorn, homemade ice cream and gelato round out the offerings.

Creativity is best part of the job

For Michaud, creativity is the best part of the job. She and her staff try out new recipes and tweak old ones. Scott Ghelfi’s parents, Rosalie and Tony, opened their shop years ago before selling to Ben and Bill's Chocolate Emporium. The recipes, Michaud said, are from the days the Ghelfis ran the shop. Alexis Atwood has been creating vegan recipes in small batches. The successful candies become part of their line.

Michaud and Atwood work from old recipe cards yellowed with age. Some recipes are hard to read, but Michaud remembers details because she’s been making chocolates since 1995. She and her staff make homemade ice cream (40 flavors) and gelato and sorbet (seven varieties at a time).

“I still eat chocolate,” Michaud said. “I’m never sick of it. I’m never sick of ice cream. I’m always on a diet.”

Ghelfi looks for candy stores even when he goes on vacation.

“I'm addicted and I have to have my piece of chocolate,” Ghelfi said. His favorites: toffee and caramel.

Cronin favors caramels, too. "I like them more than I should," she quipped.

Denise Coffey writes about business, tourism and issues impacting the Cape’s residents and visitors. Contact her at dcoffey@capecodonline.com .

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This article originally appeared on Cape Cod Times: Chocolatier named most enviable career in Mass. Meet 3 on Cape Cod.