Valentine’s Day is almost here, and people are in the hunt for gifts – flowers, jewelry, chocolate in Bucks County.
While February 14 isn’t the biggest day for American chocolate consumption – that honor goes to Halloween, followed by Easter – we still eat quite a bit of it each year.
But how did this confection come to be Valentine’s Day’s official candy? Let’s take a look at the history of giving chocolate on Valentine’s Day.
Continue reading Chocolate: A Valentine’s Day Tradition →
A new year has arrived, and with it comes resolutions.
Get more exercise, read more books, eat more dark chocolate.
No, you didn’t misread that. And yes, we do have a pro-chocolate bias, as we’ve spent decades making and selling dark chocolate in Bucks County.
Continue reading New Year’s Resolution: Eat More Dark Chocolate! →
Think you love chocolate? You’ve got nothing on Montezuma II, the Aztec emperor who drank 50 cups of liquid chocolate every day.
And when we say “liquid chocolate,” we don’t mean hot cocoa. The emperor’s preferred drink was a hot, spicy and bitter concoction.
Chocolate has undergone a lot of changes over the centuries. Instead of a liquid, we mostly consume it in its solid form. And we have our preferences: milk, dark, white. Today we’re going to look at the differences between those three varieties, allowing you to be better informed the next time you visit your Bucks County chocolate shop.
Continue reading What’s the Difference Between Dark, Milk & White Chocolate? →
Some holidays don’t have a universal date. The Canadian Thanksgiving is in October. The British Mother’s Day is in March.
And so it goes for chocolate. While the rest of the world marks World Chocolate Day on July 7, America celebrates International Chocolate day on September 13.
Why September 13?
Continue reading Celebrate International Chocolate Day with Stutz Candy →
A good piece of fudge is a work of art.
You can look at it and marvel at its construction. You can take a bite and revel in its flavor.
But if fudge is a work of art, making chocolate fudge is something of a science. Let’s take a look at how that science works.
Fudge is a crystalline candy. The key to a great piece of fudge is managing the crystallization of the sugar solution you’re using. The tiny microcrystals of sugar are what gives fudge it’s smooth texture. When you get those crystals to come together at just the right time, you’ve mastered the perfect batch of fudge.
Continue reading The Art and Science of Fudge Making →
For many of us, it was those all-night college study sessions that taught us the concept of brain food.
That is, food that actually improves our brain’s cognitive functioning when consumed. Salmon and nuts (especially walnuts) are probably the best-known brain foods, and blueberries and avocados are also known to do the trick.
But frankly, we don’t remember anyone suggesting that eating chocolate might help us better retain information when studying for that notoriously difficult pre-calc final exam.
And yet new scientific research that has been published in the scholarly journal Appetite has suggested just that.
Continue reading Does Chocolate Really Help You Think Better? →
At Stutz, we obviously love chocolate. It’s been our business now for nearly a century, fueling our Bucks County candy shops.
And it’s not just the taste, or the fact that it makes a great gift, or even the health benefits. Chocolate is just genuinely fascinating.
Here are some facts about it that you might not know:
Continue reading 8 Things You May Not Know About Chocolate →
We’ve been honoring our moms for centuries. The ancient Greeks and Romans held celebrations in praise of the mother goddesses Rhea and Cybele.
People in Europe used to observe something called “Mothering Sunday,” a day of appreciation for mothers that grew out of an early Christian tradition. Mothering Sunday eventually began to merge with the American Mother’s Day in the 1930s and 1940s.
(As we noted in last year’s Mother’s Day blog, it was Philadelphia’s Anna Jarvis, who sparked the idea for the American version of the holiday in 1908.)
It’s a big day. Mother’s Day — which falls on May 8 this year — is typically the busiest restaurant day of the year, and the day on which the most phone calls are made.
And while it’s nice to take your mom out to dinner (or at the very least, give her a call), we’d like to offer a few other ways to celebrate your mother this Mother’s Day.
Continue reading Making Mother’s Day Traditions with Stutz Candy →
Tips for Building an Easter Basket
Easter is just days away, and you’re probably thinking about filling your child’s Easter basket.
For us, the answer is always obvious: chocolate, as well as assorted other candies.
But if you’re feeling a little more inventive this year, there are a few tips we’ve collected from around the web.
Hopefully, they’ll give you some inspiration as you build your Easter baskets this year. Good luck!
Continue reading Tips for Building an Easter Basket →
Valentine’s Day is almost here, which means people all over the country will be busy buying 
roses, jewelry, cards and – of course – chocolates.
Flowers, candy and cards are pretty much the American way of doing Valentine’s Day, but that’s not the worldwide standard. Travel around the globe and you’ll find a lot of different Valentine’s Day traditions. Here are a few that we’d like to share.
Continue reading Valentine’s Day Traditions Around the World →