For Sarah Dwyer, life’s sweetest moments have always started in the kitchen.
Growing up near Annapolis, she spent hours baking gingerbread cookies and building houses with her mom, Regina, and making chocolate chip cookies with friends. By high school, Dwyer was whipping up Julia Child’s Cambridge chocolate cake for fun.
After a decade in banking, at 38 Dwyer enrolled in Le Cordon Bleu’s Patisserie Program in Paris. Back in Maryland, she couldn’t find chocolate caramels as delicious as the ones she’d enjoyed in France. So, she made her own, minus the artificial ingredients in many U.S. caramels. When demand for her treats from family and friends soared, she opened Choquette Chocolates and Confections.
“I would risk almost life and limb for a chocolate-covered caramel,” says Dwyer, who, as a kid, pressed her thumbs into every chocolate in the box, hunting for the caramels. “When people wanted to buy my chocolates, I thought, maybe this isn’t a hobby, maybe it’s my next career. I really think your first love is the thing you should do for life.”
Dwyer’s fair-trade handcrafted chocolate-covered caramels in mouthwatering flavors like raspberry, coffee, peanut butter—and the more adventurous balsamic, 7-spice, and rosemary—are screen printed with whimsical, bright designs and catchy sayings and made with natural food coloring like goldenrod for yellow and beetroot for red. Her 10-person team is mostly hired from Cornerstone Montgomery and Sunflower Bakery, and includes neuro-diverse staff who bring unique skills to the business.
Chocolate sets include cherry blossoms, “Maryland Pride” (with a Bay Spice caramel), “Phenomenal Women” featuring Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Taylor Swift, and “DC Monuments.” Some 1,500 retail stores carry her creations, including the U.S. Senate gift shop and Empire State Building store. She clearly identifies flavors so people “don’t have to play chocolate roulette.” Almost all chocolate-caramels are gluten free, with dairy-free and nut-free options, too.
Customers can pay a $125 setup fee, then place custom orders that include a one-color logo and up to five unique designs. “Anything you can put on a T-shirt or a hat I can put on a chocolate,” Dwyer says. “We tell your story on the chocolate.”
Six months ago, Dwyer hit a major milestone when she opened her first retail shop in Gaithersburg. It’s become a go-to spot for buying the best handmade chocolates for birthdays and holiday gifts. Her store is one of a handful of shops exclusively selling handcrafted chocolates in the DMV. Chocolate caramel fans can pop in from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday to build their own custom box.
Dwyer also sells emergency desk chocolate: “twig” chocolate sticks for $10 in flavors like Regina’s Toffee, named after her mom. For the holidays, she has a chocolate-caramels pie set, holiday drinks collection, holiday movies set, and collection for Chanukah and Kwanzaa. On Small Business Saturday, customers can make customized Advent Calendars. Once a month, she runs a truffle-making classes where participants create a box of 16 chocolates for $65. Every Friday and Saturday from 12 to 4 p.m. for $5 people can make a personalized chocolate bar in the store.
Her signature creation are her customizable 16-piece chocolate puzzles, which she spent over a year developing, then patented. Her favorite is the gingerbread house puzzle, which uses her mother’s spice mix and evokes a Christmassy scent. “It smells like holiday baking and Christmas, and brings me right back to being in the kitchen with my family,” Dwyer says.