Chocolate might be a year-round treat, but there’s something about Christmas that makes it sweeter.
Local chocolatiers seem to put a little something extra into their desserts for the holidays, making for one-of-a-kind confections that everyone will make room for, no matter how much turkey they’ve eaten.
For Christophe Bonzon, owner of Chez Christophe Chocolaterie Patisserie in Burnaby Heights, it’s only natural to have seasonal offerings. The exquisite chocolate shop has a handful of Christmas-specific delicacies, which have been in the making for some time.
“We start doing some design and research in October for December,” he said. “We try different designs, different shapes – it’s a lot of work to get it right. We really do something custom for people who want a different gift instead of getting a box of chocolate.”
This year, Bonzon created edible showpieces of a snowman, a reindeer, a Christmas tree and a broken ornament. It’s something he’s done for other holidays as well, such as Easter and Halloween.
“We import our chocolate directly from Switzerland,” he said. “We are the only one in Canada having this brand of chocolate, so it’s kind of unique. We create everything from scratch.
“We do cakes, pastries, croissants, and as well, we have a quite wide assortment of chocolate.”
But Bonzon isn’t strictly a chocolatier – he’s worked at various bakeries and pastry shops for the last 16 years, and he’s prepared not one, but three types of post-Christmas dinner desserts.
“It’s our yule log – our bûche de Noël – and we have one with three layers of different chocolates,” he said. “We have another one, which is called a montblanc – it’s a chestnut mousse with chestnuts, and a sponge soaked in Vanier syrup.
“The last type is gingerbread and a cinnamon mousse with a spicy apple jelly on the gingerbread sponge. It’s a real traditional dessert in Switzerland and it’s a great dessert for Christmas.”
The yule logs serve six to seven people and are available for pre-orders to be picked up on Dec. 23 and 24, though they may have a few extra for drop-ins.
Spreading some Christmas cheer through chocolate is one of the perks of the job, and to Bonzon, it’s a dream come true to live and work in North Burnaby.
“When we looked where to open our place, downtown is really expensive,” he recalled. “A lot of our customers are from Burnaby, Port Moody, Coquitlam, so they don’t have to drive downtown to get more premiere product.
“For us, we think we made the right choice by doing that and the people are happy that we are here. This neighbourhood, there’s a lot of nice places – the Peartree, Cioffi’s – and slowly, we are becoming a destination.”
