What Do Women Want? These Pretty Chocolates, Please

It all started with a Groupon. In 2011, while living in Boston, Kristin Barnes took a chocolate-making class with a friend and fell in love with the process. For Christmas that year, her husband gifted her professional molds and an automatic chocolate-tempering machine. “If it was somebody’s birthday, I made chocolates,” she says. “If it was Christmas, I made chocolates. If I was bored, I made chocolates.” After moving back to Cleveland in 2012, she invited a friend over to make chocolates and posted their creations on social media. “People just started asking, ‘You did that? How can I get some? Can I buy some from you?’ ” she recalls. Early in 2013, Barnes started Sweet Bean from her home. With pops of bright colors, her small-batch chocolates ($8 for four, $24 for 12) look too good to eat. She starts by painting colored cocoa butter or luster dust into molds to achieve that high-gloss, swirled finish. “When you pour melted chocolate into there, the design adheres to the chocolate,” she says. Barnes then pipes in handmade fillings such as red hot cinnamon white chocolate ganache, salted caramel or strawberry rose white chocolate ganache before adding a layer of milk, dark or white chocolate to seal the sugary deal. “The uniqueness of the flavors is a lot of fun,” she says. “It’s not just a box of caramels.” sweetbeancandies.com