By Rich Bockmann
Everyone knows the zombie apocalypse is coming, but how many preppers’ survival kits include chocolate-covered jalapenos?
Apparently, zombies are allergic to chocolate, and that is just one reason — along with graduations and christenings — the survivalists at Little Bird Chocolates suggest you should stock up on their candied treats.
“Hot, sweet, chocolatey, salty joy,” is how owner Sara Meyer described the jalapeno bites.
Meyer — who has a background as a recipe tester and food blogger — thought up the idea for the unique snacks when she was going through a self-described “candying phase,” tossing almost every fruit she could think of into a pan of hot sugar syrup.
“I had these jalapenos that were going to go bad and I thought, ‘What would happen if I candied those?’” she explained. “I tried it and it turned out really good and then I covered it in chocolate and it was even better.”
After a coating of dark Belgian chocolate, the bites are sprinkled with sea salt, a dressing Meyer also found works well for animal crackers.
She got the idea for what would eventually become littlebirdchocolates.com a few years ago, when a kitchen crisis called for some innovation.
Meyer had been baking cookies for some time and handing them out as gifts, but one day her oven broke.
So she pulled out her husband’s favorite animal crackers, threw a double boiler on the range and chocolate joy was born.
The company’s name is an ode to Sara’s grandmother-in-law. Her name, Faye, can be changed in Yiddish to the term of endearment “faygele,” which means “little bird” and is what the couple call their 2-year-old daughter.
Working out of Long Island City’s E-Space business incubator, Little Bird makes two varieties of the hand-dipped animal crackers: one getting the dark chocolate and sea salt treatment, and another coated in milk chocolate.
The crackers go for $15 for 6 ounces and 8 ounces of the jalapeno bites will set you back $20.
Meyer and her husband tasted 75 different varieties before deciding on Belgian chocolate, which she said lives up to its reputation.
“The Belgian chocolate was really the one we both were attracted to — the way it melts in your mouth and snaps when properly tempered,” she said.
Her next grand experiment is giving homemade marshmallows the Little Bird Chocolates treatment, and if it that goes over with the company’s fans as well as the jalapeno bites did, it should inspire some colorful reactions.
“Choc covered jalapenos defeat hormonal mood swings,” Barbara H. from Andover, Mass., commented on the company’s website. “Your candy might be the only thing standing between me & jail time today.”
Reach reporter Rich Bockmann by e-mail at rbockmann@cnglocal.com or by phone at 718-260-4574.
