This week for Mother’s Day, Chocolatier Constance Popp has a collection of sweets that your mom will surely love.
The special Mother’s Day Box (see lede photo) contains six tasty numbers, including raspberry amaretto, vanilla bean cream and white chocolate (the swan), orange passion fruit and basil, rosemary lavender, mango ginger marigold, and blueberry and lemon. (Having eaten a box of them, our recommendation is to close your eyes when eating each individual one - let it slowly dissolve on your tongue so you get the layovers of subtle flavour, like the mild citrusy, bitter notes of the marigold.)
Right now, they are also making three cakes for the occasion too, including a beautiful strawberry cheesecake as pictured on their Instagram (they had posted this photo on Friday and were quickly asked if more could be done by regular customers, so it's now on the Mother's Day menu). The store still has plenty of varieties of chocolate and chocolate products – a great deal of them utilizing local ingredients like Manitoba birch syrup – which the staff, including Ray Tara (pictured below) are ready to guide you through to create a custom gift basket.
While you can order online and on the phone, we should also stress the store is responsibly open right now for shopping, with (as you’ll see again in the photo collage), plenty of social distancing measures in place, along with a sanitization station upon arrival.
Menzies herself is also doing deliveries on orders several times a week, with Mother’s Day deliveries set for Friday – so get those orders in ASAP.
Why shop Popp?
Chocolatier Constance Popp is Winnipeg’s original bean-to-bar chocolate maker, with over 10 per cent of the shop’s creations being made from cacao that is processed in house. The chocolate they use and source is certified fair trade and organic, with much of it coming from Criollo beans, which is the cream of the chocolate pod crop. (You can read about how they process these beans in the link above).
On top of this, Menzies and her staff are ardent supporters of other local producers, including rare and interesting Manitoba companies like Rocky Lake Birchworks, which makes birch syrup that she uses in bars and her award-winning ice cream. Because of this, along with the great taste of her products and the shop’s commitment to being ecologically sound, they’ve won numerous awards and accolades.
The shop also specializes in unique larger scale creations that celebrate the city, including chocolate Golden Boy statues and The Canadian Museum for Human Rights.
Chocolatier Constance Popp is located at 180 Provencher Boulevard and is currently operating at reduced hours: Monday to Friday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Saturdays noon to four.
