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20
Dec
Behind the scenes at Bettys and its chocolate bears
Christmas at Bettys is a year long affair.
Planning for the festive period begins a year in advance. Production of the chocolates, biscuits and cakes begins in June - although we can only get our paws on them in December.
Just under 19 tonnes of chocolate is used to make our Christmas treats..that's about one hundred times as heavy as a reindeer (apparently!).
Bettys prides itself on its craft bakery, with all chocolate products handmade by a skilled team of chocolatiers.
From its location in Harrogate, all chocolate products are distributed to Bettys’ five branches and travel as far as America.
New this year are the Swiss chocolate bears, which have been a bestseller.
But how do they come together? The Stray Ferret visited Bettys’ craft bakery in Harrogate last week to find out.
Meeting the team
Chocolate room leader Kirsty Mitchison and chocolatier Emily Knox met us at the chocolate room to show us around.
It is full of workstations and machinery. Each station has a chocolatier completing different individual tasks.
Each chocolatier’s roles will change daily, from melting chocolate and moulding, to decorating and piping icing onto the confectionery.
Kirsty Mitchison working with the chocolate. Picture: Bettys
Kirsty says the work is tricky:
You need patience! There are challenges in all the tasks we do. We have to work with the chocolate quickly – it starts setting after a few minutes. Christmas and Easter are our two busiest times here; you can feel it.
The demand for chocolate doesn’t stop, so the bakery has different teams working in shifts throughout the day. Some workers begin at 2am, some at 6am, and so forth.
Making the bears
All of Bettys’ chocolate comes from Felchlin – a Swiss chocolate supplier from the small town of Schwyz.
It arrives at the bakery in block form and is then melted down and tempered in machines.
Tempering is the controlled heating and cooling of chocolate to ensure it has a smooth, glossy finish and a good snap. If chocolate isn't tempered, it can look dull or get white patches from the cocoa butter separating.
One of the tempering machines.
After tempering, the chocolate is then poured into the bear-shaped moulds. If the chocolate hasn’t been tempered correctly, it can stick to the mould after setting.
Ms Mitchison said that each chocolate product has a different process after tempering.
To ensure the bear is hollow, it is rotated inside its mould so excess chocolate flows out and a thin, even layer of chocolate is formed inside the walls of the mould.
Once it has set, two more layers are formed inside the mould to create a thick shell. The timing is important here – the chocolate needs to have set, but not be too cold for the layers to bond well.
The chocolate is then left to cool. Once fully set, the bear is then removed from the mould, ready for piping.
The bears are ready to come out of the moulds.
Being removed from the mould.
White chocolate and beetroot colouring are mixed and heated to the correct temperature, then piped onto the bear to complete its red bow. Emily Knox demonstrated her steady hand as she piped one of the bears for us.
Once the icing has set, the bears are then transferred to a dark, cool room ready for packaging. Direct sunlight can bleach chocolate and affect its taste.
Emily Knox carefully pipes a bow onto the bear.
But what happens if anything goes wrong?
Ms Mitchison said:
All of the chocolate gets reused and melted down again, should anything go wrong during the process.
We also have a ‘staff sales’ system for any other mishaps, where employees can buy the chocolates that aren’t up to scratch. All of the money goes to charity.
‘It’s nice that people appreciate the efforts’
Of course, Kirsty and Emily also have the Christmas and Easter window displays to worry about.
Each display’s large chocolate feature has to be crafted by the chocolatiers.
Kirsty said that they even have to temper the chocolate by hand at Easter, to ensure the giant egg has a stable structure.
Bettys Easter window display 2024
She added:
It’s nice that people are enjoying our products and appreciating the efforts we put in.
So, when you’re next tucking into your Bettys chocolate bear or florentine, think of the incredible skill of staff like Emily and Kirsty who play a big part in your Christmas experience.
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