Snelgrove's Chocolatier - Florist

Snelgrove’s ! KEITH O'CONNOR  LEON NGUYEN

Ask Timothy Snelgrove why he became a chocolatier and he will answer your questions with a question.

“Who doesn’t like chocolate?”

Today he is owner of Snelgrove’s Chocolatier - Florist in Enfield where they “bring chocolates, ice cream and florals together in one place.”

“Valentine’s Day and Easter are our biggest seasons. Chocolates and flowers go together for Valentine’s Day when we sell plenty of chocolate hearts, truffles, chocolate dipped strawberries and heart-shaped boxes of assorted chocolates. On the floral side, we have roses and other arrangements to choose from, as well as special packages combining both flowers and chocolates,” Snelgrove said.

The Institut Culinaire de France describes a chocolatier as “someone who makes confectionery made from chocolate. They may be responsible for the whole process from start to finish, from devising a recipe, through to making the product, and finally packaging, displaying and selling.”

Certainly Snelgrove fits that description.

“There are two ways to become a chocolatier, either professional training at a culinary school where you study as a pastry chef or participating in an apprenticeship. My route to becoming a chocolatier was being self-taught, and then I did an apprenticeship, but I’m mostly self-taught,” Snelgrove said.

Before his interest in chocolates

- Snelgrove noted he is a bona fide chocoholic and loves anything matching peanut butter and chocolate together - he developed a love for floral design. His home was next to the floral shop, Snelgrove’s Florist and Greenhouse in Windsor, that his grandfather started in 1924. He spent many a day as a boy in the store and working in the greenhouses.

“My parents divorced and we moved to Poquonock, so I had to find something else to occupy my time now that I didn’t have the flower store near me,” Snelgrove said.

That new hobby would be making chocolates and becoming a junior businessman selling them from his home.

Snelgrove best tells his story to becoming a chocolatier in a section on the store’s website called “The start of Chocolate.”

“I remember very fondly my mother asking me what was I going to do with myself. I had always had a passion for making chocolates with my grandmother. So I told her, ‘I am going to start to make chocolates to sell!’ At this time there was not the availability to things like the Internet, we are talking the earlier 90s. So, I took the bus from my section of town to the library and taught myself how to make chocolates. I was around 11 years old when I opened my first candy store out of my home, mostly selling to friends, family and neighbors. I kept this going until I was almost 16,” he wrote.

When he turned 16, Snelgrove found a job working for Munson’s Chocolates in 1995 before “jumping at the chance” to apprentice at Burnham & Brady under their chocolatier, where he apprenticed until they closed their doors after 150 years in operation.

Seeking a change in his life, Snelgrove worked in the jewelry industry for several years becoming a gemologist. Plagued by back injuries he suffered when being hit by a bus when he was 10, Snelgrove found himself in the hospital where he would undergo the first of four back surgeries, giving him the opportunity to once again contemplate what he wanted to do with his life.

“I returned to the floral business operating a boutique flower shop out of my home before opening Flowers by Timothy Snelgrove in 2000, a store in the Poquonock section of Windsor. I needed something to draw people into my business, so I began making fudge and chocolates again to sell in the store,” Snelgrove said.

After losing the lease to their Poquonock location, Snelgrove moved his operation to Windsor center and changed the name to Snelgrove's Chocolatier - Florist.

"Chocolates had become a very integral part of the business, with the floral becoming more of the boutique business," he said.

After a few years, Snelgrove opened a second location in East Granby, where he located their kitchen in the retail facility. In 2020, the advent of Covid-19 resulted in the shutdown of their Windsor location.

The chocolate artisan uses Belgian chocolate, which many chocolatiers consider the finest in the world, to craft his handmade chocolates, beginning the process the old-fashioned way from copper kettles. Belgian chocolate has a higher cocoa content than most foreign products and contains 72% cocoa butter, which adds to the taste and texture of the finished chocolates. His chocolates are made with natural, high-quality ingredients with no artificial preservatives and their dark chocolates are also vegan.

Customer favorites include his peanut butter cups and anything with peanut butter, truffles, butter crunch and seasonal items such a hot chocolate bombs and Easter Bunnies. Surprisingly, today he sells more dark - which contains a higher amount of cocoa and no added milk solids - than milk chocolate. While more bitter than milk chocolate, Snelgrove noted that richness outweighs any bitterness.

Other taste-tempting, sweet confections include milk and dark chocolate sea salt caramels, milk chocolate peanut bark, milk chocolate pecan turtles, milk chocolate peanut butter cups, dark chocolate raspberry truffles, milk chocolate peanut butter truffles, milk chocolate pecan bark, dark chocolate lemon truffles, dark chocolate bark, Fluffernutter cups, dark chocolate dipped orange peels and so many others.

They also offer homemade ice cream, bringing another branch of the family’s legacy under one umbrella. Snelgrove’s ice cream was established in Utah many years ago by his cousins. They became a large regional operation, eventually selling the business.

With limited space in East Granby and the need to grow, Snelgrove closed the store and recently moved his entire operation to a larger facility in Enfield, which had a soft opening just before Christmas. "When looking for a new property to purchase as our own this time, we stumbled upon a site in Enfield that is opposite what used to be Crand’s Candy Castle which closed in 2001 after 49 years creating their own chocolate confections. My love of good chocolate began at Crand’s where my mother often brought me. Because of my interest, they even allowed me to go out back and watch their chocolate making operation,” Snelgrove said.

“The property rang a lot of bells with me, especially being across from Crand’s. It was very nostalgic and on top of everything else, purchasing the property offered easy access to the store from Interstate 91 and Route 5,” he added.

Snelgrove said the larger property will allow him to break ground on an additional structure in the spring where they will have more room to produce the amazing variety of 380 different chocolates and fudges they are known for, as well as return to making hard candy such as peanut brittle, candy canes and taffy.

Snelgrove's is located on 1695 King St. in Enfield. Winter hours are 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., seven days a week. For more information, visit snelgroves.net or call 860-413-9042.