If Paige Hiller, co-owner of Woodstock-based Chocolate Fusion, knows one
thing about candies (spoiler alert: she knows a lot more than one
thing), it is the importance of tempering chocolate when making
beautiful, delicious confections. For those of us who only know
chocolate on the receiving end, tempering is the process of heating and
cooling that stabilizes the chocolate for use in candies. Proper
tempering produces the attractive shine and satisfying snap of a
well-made sweet.
Ecole Chocolat, the Canadian-based school from which Paige took the
online, two-year Professional Chocolatier Program, says on their
website, “Learning how to temper chocolate is not only about the
outcome. It’s about the process, the chemistry involved, the steps
involved, what you’re looking for and why.” The same can be said about
Chocolate Fusion, which Paige and co-owner Lindsay Rogers have tempered
into a delicious and satisfying business.
The Process
Chocolatier was not Paige’s first career. That was photography, which
led her from her hometown of Westfield, New Jersey, to New York City,
then to design jobs at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and the
Metropolitan Museum of Art. Later, she moved to Vermont to work for Wild
Apple Graphics. She returned to photography, focusing on weddings until
the pandemic put such gatherings on hold.
“You make great toffee,” friends told her as Paige struggled to find a
new line of work. “Maybe you should do that full time.” The toffee she
made from a recipe given to her by a family friend in New Jersey was for
Christmas gifts only. The more she thought about it, though, the more
Paige realized that maybe there was something there. With two years of
study and practice, she became skilled in all aspects of chocolate. What
she was not skilled in was running a business like this.
The Chemistry
Lindsay (left) and Paige, 1971.
Paige and Lindsay are three months apart in age. Their families were
friends before they were born and lived in Westfield until Lindsay’s
family moved to California when she and Paige were seven. Their
friendship was stronger than the distance; they stayed in contact
cross-country and saw each other when their families vacationed
together. While Paige pursued creative careers, Lindsay was all
business. After graduating from the Wharton School, she specialized in
recruiting executives for companies.
“I was trying my best to do it myself,” Paige says of her attempts to
start a business, “and I wasn’t getting anywhere.” She talked with
Lindsay, who suggested she could help. They decided to mull the idea
over for the next six months. “If we don’t like the way we’re going by
June [2022],” Paige recalls Lindsay saying, “then we’ll kibosh the whole
thing. And if we like it, then I’m going to come out, and we’re really
going to put our heads together.” When the six months passed, Lindsay
came east.
Lindsay notes that their skills complement each other. “I am Paige’s
left brain,” she says, “and Paige is my right.” Lindsay keeps track of
inventory, expenses, and ordering while Paige makes the chocolates and
brainstorms new flavor combinations. They hold weekly meetings over
Zoom, which always fall back into friendship mode, no matter how they
try to stay focused. Often, “we get off on a tangent, sometimes for an
hour,” Paige says, until one of them realizes that they have to get back
to talking shop.
The Steps
While Lindsay may be adept at painting the business’s financial picture
by filling in cells on a spreadsheet, Paige is adept at painting bonbons
and filling them with ganache to create edible works of art. Though
many businesses throw around the term “small batch” as a marketing
buzzword, the work Paige does is the definition of that phrase. She
makes the bonbons, 24 per mold, only when they are ordered.
Bonbons are colorful confections painted on the outside using cocoa
butters. Apart from the painting, the effort to create them is more
technical and mechanical than creative. That is until Paige considers
the flavors for the ganache that will fill them. She has spent hours
creating recipes for specific flavor combinations. One day’s order may
be for chocolate caramel ganache, two intense flavors that play off each
other. The next may be for a brighter flavor combination: raspberry
orange, where the former takes the starring role, but the acidity of the
orange tames its sweetness.
What You’re Looking For
More than anything, Paige and Lindsay hope eating a Chocolate Fusion
confection will be an experience. Paige says she wants people to be awed
by how they look, but she doesn’t want people to think they are too
pretty to eat. “Yes, they are beautiful, but they’re not just a piece of
art,” she says. “I want the beauty backed up by the flavor combination.
I want someone to say, ‘That was great, I’m having another.’”
It’s worth noting that, though bonbons are the most labor-intensive
sweets Chocolate Fusion offers, Paige and Lindsay put similar devotion
and passion into their milk-, dark-, and white-chocolate
fruit-and-nut-studded hearts. In these, you’ll find such goodies as
caramelized hazelnuts or almonds, roasted pistachios, and high-quality
cherries. And, of course, the company makes the toffee that started it
all.
The Why
Like many people, Paige faced a crisis of employment when the pandemic
began. She was fortunate enough to have the time and ability to branch
out and try something new. However, that is not why she and Lindsay
started Chocolate Fusion.
Paige and Lindsay became empty nesters at the same time when their
daughters left home. They both wanted to fill the space. Lindsay summed
it up as they were contemplating their new business venture. “Who knows
how successful it will be,” she said to Paige, “but it will be a fun
second act regardless. Let’s go for it!”
Paige also notes something else that motivated her. “I want my daughters
to know that there is always the possibility of reinventing yourself. I
want them to know that it is extremely important as women to have
something of your own.”
Paige and Lindsay have turned their passions into a growing business in a
short time. They continue to test new flavor combinations, hone the
workings of their most recent adventure, and, most importantly, remain
each other’s best friends.
You can find C
hocolate Fusion Co online and at pop-up shops during the holidays.
