Baylee’s Best Chocolates values food experience
CAVE SPRING–“I’m amazed when people just stick a piece of chocolate in their mouth, chew it up, and swallow, without tasting it,” Bayla Sussman said. “I want to wallow in it a little bit.”
For Sussman, chocolate is about more than cocoa beans and sugar.
“It’s a very sensual thing,” Sussman said.
Baylee's Best Chocolates owner Bayla Sussman weighs a few pieces of candy for a customer. The chocolate shop, located at the West Village shopping center on Electric Road, sells handmade artisan candies. Photo by Kristin Adams
The owner of Baylee’s Best Chocolates does not consider herself a “super foodie.” Sussman’s dedication to flavor, however, speaks to a higher level of enjoyment. For her, food should create a sensation. Chocolate is more of an experience than a food.
Very few people still take the time to create anything by hand. In a world of fast food and assembly lines, it is refreshing to find a business owner who chooses the slower route. For Sussman and her employees, every truffle, each buttercream and toffee in the shop is lovingly created by hand. That is the life of a chocolate artisan.
And the chocolate is certainly artistic. It is hard to find a candy in Sussman’s store that does not resemble a tiny, edible piece of art. Almonds sprinkled over truffles; 24 karat gold dusted onto dark chocolate Aztec molds; fortune cookies covered in sprinkles.
In a way, Sussman traded one art form for another. A theatre major, and an actress for many years, Sussman had an on-stage accident which showed her a new way of life. Playing the witch in “Hansel and Gretel,” Sussman was shoved into the oven for the play’s famous escape scene. She was asphyxiated, and it took her four years to fully recover from the incident.
“During that time, I couldn’t do a lot of things,” Sussman said. “But I could bake. And bake I did.”
Soon, she couldn’t go to a party without taking a batch of brownies. When she met her husband, she began baking for him and his employees.
“Then I started playing a little bit with some candy recipes,” Sussman said.
When she had perfected her truffle recipe, she brought them to one of friend and business owner Gwenda Kellett’s many receptions.
“People oohed and aahed,” Sussman said.
Kellett, who owns Plantagenet Rose, an interior décor shop, encouraged her to open a candy business. Five months later, Sussman did; she began the business in her home.
“And it grew. So here I am,” Sussman said.
Sussman moved into West Village in December of 2008.
Today, she has five part-time employees, all students. On any given day, a customer can find one or two of them, wearing chef hats, hair nets, or even a beret, helping customers and making chocolates. In display cases, shelves of candies call out to hungry customers hoping for a treat. Look behind the display, and one can see into the kitchen, which is even more appealing. A wheel continually spins the mouth-watering chocolate to keep it fresh. Employees spend much of their time dipping, rolling, and even spray painting the small confections, whether for sale in the shop piece by piece, or in bulk for catered events.
Sussman herself is almost always on hand, whether she is greeting customers, designing advertisements, or perfecting a new recipe. Some of her recipes are modified from cookbooks, but most come from trial and error. Sussman has spent years testing ingredients, finding just the right combinations. Whether her chocolates are meant to complement a cigar, brighten a shut-in’s day, bring a bride’s dreams to life, or cheer up a downtrodden customer, she works to find just the right balance.
“That confection better be worth every calorie that you consume,” Sussman said.
In the end, Sussman’s attitude may make that chocolate taste even better. She has a way of making everything, even eating chocolate, more fun. Dancing while she bakes, cracking jokes, and smiling through everyday catastrophes can make delightful experiences such as eating even more fun.
“[My husband told me that] here, whatever kind of [mood] people walk in with, they always walk out happy,” Sussman said.
