News of the festive stock

Boxes of festive prunes and Apostles selection on pre-order today

Good evening, customers and non-customers of Continuum Conceits chocolates, you who brighten my life with joy and inspiration. Let me share an update on what is happening. l am slightly concerned that some of you may be concerned about the lack of news on my side for your very much waited-for Yule-Christmas-Solstice celebrations chocolates and confectionery. That out of fright of postal service not working, you will order just what is on the website today and then be left frustrated that l was not faster at putting the stock online. Well, like every year, l am in the middle of making those for you, now, being mid- November. FESTIVE PRUNES: So far, l have all the festive prunes ganaches and centers done, of which there will be a selection of 12 and 6 prunes, with 2 of each or 1 of each flavour in the box. The flavours, at the top of my head, are: (my paperwork is in the other kitchen) - Calvados from a local Normandy farm and Herefordshire apples ganache (dark) - Orange and lemon almond paste (marzipan without the bitter almond) - Armagnac prune purée (l was lazy this year, but let's be fair, this is one of your favourite) - Damson gin ganache made from the field's damsons (dark) - Orange blossom, heather honey and cream ganache (white) - Hazelnut and chicorée Leroux praline (white). l have tasted them all and they are delicious. They are the best l have ever done, yet. (l gave myself an under the table present of £20 to get me to write this on here, can you believe this, and we thought that sort of thing only happened at councils and governments levels!) APOSTLES CHOCOLATES BOXES: There will be Apostles boxes, and l only have 20 of the Camembert boxes this year, since the EU wants to ban wooden packaging for cheese, saying using wood is an ecological disaster and we should only use plastic packaging from now on. We all know, of course, that plastic is truly recycled and not just burned in a big factory in Kidderminster, or sent to South-Asia seas, or turned into micro-beads to send off from the Hastings coast. Not at all. The French cheese makers are "rouspeting" about it (franglais of "rouspéter" which is occitan for "to moan") as cheese needs to breathe and plastic does not allow cheese to breathe at all, unless it has holes in it or a polyester fabric piece somewhere. In any way, cheese will end up more ladened with micro-plastics, which l am personally not fond of. As a result of darling EU extreme-wings policies, l am not able to get any Rustique cheese boxes any longer, as the cheeses do not come in those boxes, or so said the cheesemongers in Hereford. All this to say, l only have 20 camembert boxes, and l need some of those for my market customers who, some of them, will not have the funds for the higher price of the new box which l am offering, to make up the 40 boxes of Apostles l want to make every year. (Only 40! Can you imagine how rare my Apostles boxes are?! Only 40 of us will get a box! The others will have to make do with whatever else they can get from my website, or go to someone else's website and say that they don't like my chocolates anyway and prefer Cadbury's.) l have looked everywhere for 20cm+ diametre (nice) round boxes, and l can't find them anywhere. l could order some very nice ones at 12 euros+ each from Belgium (this was the price 2 years ago when l last looked), + the courier fees which are £150 per order, +customs charges, +VAT on custom charges and VAT on top of the admin fees of £85 per order because of Brexit, it takes the packaging company more time to organise a UK delivery. Needless to say, this is not an option at this time, and l would be jealous of the boxes anyway because l wouldn't have done the nice decorations on them, they would be handsomely presented with some generic artwork and wouldn't have my artwork on them.l would want my own artwork printed and that would cost thousands and l would need to order 2,000 boxes, which would take me 50 years to use at 40 boxes per year. l have looked online, and l cannot find nice round boxes other than going for Chinese packaging. The problem with China is that because l can't order flat-packed boxes (flat-packing doesn't work well with round boxes unless there was a rubber side to the box or accordeon-like) the shipping costs are very high as the courriers charge per volume as well as per weight. Last year, it cost me 150$+ for the shipping fees for 20 boxes, the total weight being less than 5kg for the whole box of boxes. So, it is a bit of a cunundrum, my nice round boxes. l could go for square, but l don't want to. l have square things all year round so l want something round for my end-of-year party. So, l thought, what can l do? l know. l have been thinking about this for years. Let's make my own boxes, out of fabric! How do l go about that? l couldn't find any tutorials online on how to make my own round boxes out of fabric, not one which l found was suitable for my purpose, so l had to use my brain cells and thanks to my new homeopathy remedy which seems to be giving me a better use of braincells than l used to have ability for in the last few years, l came up with a box which is lovely, with nice fabrics, with a hard board base and a semi-flexible hard side and a soft top which closes with a draw-ribbon, which takes over 1h30 each, to make.

l can hear you shreaking from here. 1h30 say you, that at minimum wage would be £18 (is the minimum wage £12 nowadays?) and there is the cost of the fabric at £8/m,(l am lucky we have Doughty's for best fabric choices in Hereford) the £1 cake boards, and the lace which goes around the outside of the box at 85p/meter.

(l had to have cheap lace, there was some really nice hemp one but it was too much per metre) In all, those boxes would cost over £20. Well, l can't charge you or anyone an extra £20 for a beautiful box, can l. l have loved making them, even if it took me 3 weeks to make 20 boxes, which you will be able to reuse to put your treasures in, your knitting, your crochet, your cards crafts, your plumbing tools or your very large amount of jewelry. A box which is reusable in many ways. What to do? l need to get my costs back, so l decided to charge ...£56 for the fabric box of Apostles and £42.50 for the camembert Apostles, because the chocolate price has gone up this year. However, as l am very generous and kind (sometimes) and it would be great if the offer was desirable (without insistance nor expectation on the outcome, says Bashar); since it is a 10" base box and it needs to look good, l will put an extra 8 chocolates in each box, with 4 different flavours which are NOT going to be in the Apostles camembert box. Those will be ganaches will alcohol, as my main box only has 4 alcoholic ganaches this year, therefore, it making 8 ganaches with alcohol plus the other...12 types with no alcohol. The 4 flavours which won't be in the main camembert Apostles box but will be in the fabric box: - Rum raisin - Kington peach liqueur (Kington peaches, very flavoursome but not very sweet) - ... (l don't remember number 3:either calvados and local apple or damson gin) - Licorice and anise, which is my favourite so l can't be without. After this, l will be making the single selection boxes which come in the black/pink boxes at £29 with one of each of the camembert menu kind. (l better write all this out, l will be looking for the prices when doing the stock online, wondering where l have written it down) . There will be the classic boxes with no alcohol, 6 chocolates at £12.50 and a box of alcoholic ganaches of 4 chocolates in a box, £8.50. Other stock coming, not yet on the website: limited stocks of Nougat which some of you have enjoyed earlier in the year, full of nuts and fruit, though not as soft as the previous batch. Arbitrary FRUIT tablette bars, which l have been promising you for 6 months, successfully selling at markets but l have not taken the time to put them on the website yet, just like the Local honey, pollen and organic apricot tablette bars and the Heather honey, pollen and apple which is just for you and not for the market customers; the Rose and local apple in white chocolate only (l have not had time to do a dark version) l am also going to make an Equilibrium, Peace chocolate with the 4 cardinal points (Russia, Israel, Ukraine and Palestine) which every online customer who can wait another 2 weeks for their order to be dispatched, will get a piece of. l may do a video of making this for my (neglected) youtube channel. It will be a symbolic chocolate, just like the Cathar bar is [sorry, this is out of stock, l have had no time to make any more] as a symbol of strength for their souls. However, l am still waiting for the Russian buckwheat to arrive - it is very difficult to source produce from Russia in the UK. l had other plans as well, to make my sprouted sunflower seeds chocolate with garlic and herbs and curry with sultanas, (one dark and one milk, not both in the same dish, that would be too much) but again, l have not had time despite having bought the ingredients. All takes so long, l have been 3h writing this blog and going on my website products to amend the writings so you can pre-order the prunes and the Apostles collection if you want to make sure you have a box put aside. ANY ORDERS OF APOSTLES AND FESTIVE PRUNES DONE IN ADVANCE WILL HAVE POSTAGE ON TOP - IF YOU WISH TO PLACE ANOTHER ORDER WHILE THIS ONE IS NOT YET POSTED, YOU CAN SELECT THE OPTION "collect at local market or croft farm" ON THE POSTAGE OPTIONS TO GET THE REST OF THE Order OR A NEW ORDER SENT IN THE SAME BOX, AT NO EXTRA POSTAGE COST. l had to put that in capitals otherwise it would get lost in the very long text l have written above. Shall l go now, and abandon my ganaches making, which will wait till tomorrow? Indeed, and l wish you a good night! Alexandra PS l will not re-read this to check for F's missing or spelling/grammar mistakes, otherwise l will be another 2h and be late to bed. My apologies for any mistakes. My keyboard has a lazy F key. It's the keyboard's fault.