Home of ‘Deliciously Different’ gourmet milk, white and dark chocolate gifts and treats, including Robins and Sons signature ‘Chocolate Crackle’ flavoured with natural plant and fruit oils, and our succulent ‘Dipped Oranges’ - whole orange slices in a crisp milk or dark chocolate shell.
During a visit to New York at ‘Thanksgiving’ some years back , I discovered a delicious, moreish ‘minty treat' called Peppermint Bark - a speciality created solely for the USA Christmas season, consisting of thinly layered milk and white (or dark and white chocolate), infused with peppermint and topped with crushed candy cane.
Having unsuccessfully scoured the UK in vain for something similar (and I confess, becoming rather obsessed through the exasperation of not being able to get hold of it, lol), I tracked down an authentic recipe and using high cocoa content Belgian chocolate as my base and natural peppermint oil, decided to make my own.
However, a mistake in converting quantities from a USA recipe meant I made rather a lot, so treated family and friends to my culinary attempts. This proved to be an unexpected turning point and the concept of Robins and Sons signature ‘Chocolate Crackle’ was born, and my career progression from Clinical Scientist to Chocolatier began.
The ‘team’ consists of me, my husband Andrew (whose creative talent is behind our logo) my 2 teenage sons, (David and Thomas) - the self-styled ‘brains’ behind the operation (although their input resembles more ‘eating’ of profits than making any), and the latest addition to the team, our recipe posts creator Wendy (aka my Mum).
We now have over 25 product lines but all have one thing in common, each and every component has been meticulously sourced from around the globe for superiority in taste, texture and appearance. Spain for the succulent orange slices that constitute our ‘Dipped Oranges’ Uganda for our single origin 80% dark chocolate ‘Purist’ range, even Sicily for the lemon oil used in our ‘Sicilian Lemon Crunch’, using only natural flavours and colours throughout.
Our products have also helped many corporate clients (including Rodial Luxury Skincare Ltd, London) with promotional events, and have been featured by influential bloggers like Peachy Deegan (www.WhomyouKnow.com - Klear’s Top 1% Social Media Influencers) and Linda Hobbis (www.Mother Distracted.com - voted Vuelio's Top 10 Blogs).
So in short, it has been, and continues to be an exciting, often tiring, sometimes frustrating and incredibly rewarding journey, one which I probably owe to a kind, New York department store sales assistant, who offered me a free chocolate ‘taster’, all those years ago!
Chocolate is one of life’s little luxuries, so enjoy to the full!
Andrea Robins
