The Bettys Blog

Trees are our national treasures – and they need our help. Through Bettys Trees for Life, we’re working to keep our woodlands growing into the future.

You might be forgiven for thinking that an unforgettable Christmas is all about grand spectacles: the turkey, the pudding, the cake, the tree. But here at Bettys, we know that there’s just as much joy to be found in perfecting the little things.

Enticing and exquisite chocolates have been a part of our Bettys tradition since the beginning. Before that, even: when he opened the very first Bettys Café Tea Room in Harrogate in 1919, our founder Frederick Belmont could already style himself ‘Chocolate Specialist’, having refined his skills studying with the master confectioners of Switzerland and Paris.

You may be wondering why a Yorkshire tea room is so passionate about Swiss cuisine. To find the answer you need to go back more than a hundred years.

You could be forgiven for thinking that France is the home of the macaroon, but their actual birthplace is Italy which is why they take their name from the Italian word for ‘paste’ – ‘macarone’.

It is now coming to the end of the tree planting season for this year with most trees now starting to come into bud or full leaf and blossom beginning to brightening up field and town. Although with how the weather has been recently I am not sure if the trees know what month it is or even what season.

From Thursday 2nd to Sunday 5th May, the world’s best cyclists will be racing around the hills, dales and moors of our beautiful county on the Tour de Yorkshire, and to celebrate we’ve made this butter biscuit bear in the blue leader's jersey.

Join us from 22nd to 24th June at the RHS Garden Harlow Carr Flower Show where we’ll keep you refreshed at a Bettys pop-up, which will spring up like fresh flowers within the grounds of the gardens.

Not sure whether to call this blog winter or spring because we seem to be going backwards and forwards between the two seasons! A cold wind blowing in from Russia and then a warm westerly bringing a thaw and a promise of croaking frogs and nesting birds.

There are lots of good eggs at Bettys and we don’t just mean the delicious, handcrafted chocolate eggs in our shops at Easter. We also mean the people who’ll help to make your visit feel magical – like Elaine, Amanda, Dawn and all the good eggs at Bettys Northallerton.

Struggling to find a truly beautiful Easter treat for a really good egg? Poach an idea from Bettys: match the Easter gift to their personality with our highly ‘scientific’ guide.

“It's not tricky.”

Josie Raine is describing the process of making a five kilo, 55cm tall Easter egg – like our Imperial in Bloom Egg. To put it together, one huge half is placed curved-side-down, then tempered chocolate is spread onto the edge and the other half is carefully manoeuvred on top of it. To the untrained eye, it sounds terrifyingly tricky.

When you look at our towering Imperial Bloom Egg, it's our very dear wish that your first thought is, "Wow". And then, in our heart of hearts, we hope the next thing you think is, "Yum". But after gazing at it for a little while, as it towers above the other Easter eggs in the window of one of our branches, we like to think that a few people might start to wonder exactly how this 5.5kg giant was created.

We've always felt that the way something looks and the way something tastes are very closely connected. It's particularly true of sweet treats - with great beauty often comes great deliciousness. So when our chocolatiers devise a new and highly glamorous shade of Easter egg, it's always a cause for celebration.

If you’re looking for an original alternative to an egg as a gift this Easter, may we suggest this delightful fellow? For someone trotter-deep in mud he looks pretty contented – and so he should be, for he’s made from the same delicious Swiss Grand Cru milk chocolate that we use for our Easter Eggs.

Eggs are famously fragile – and that goes for chocolate eggs too. With their beautiful tempered shells and intricate hand-crafted decorations, we know lots of people prefer to buy Easter eggs in person, just in case on online doesn’t arrive in perfect condition. But you needn’t worry, because we’re a little obsessive about parcels. From the materials we use to the way we pack, no delivery leaves our doors without being showered with the same love, care and craft that goes into the eggs themselves.

Imagine, for a minute, that you have a time machine. Now pop back to the 1920s, drop into Bettys Café Tea Rooms in Harrogate and pick yourself up a box of Lady Betty Peppermint Creams. When you arrive back in the present, you may be surprised by how little your chocolates differ from those we sell today.

Deep in the heart of Switzerland, the small town of Schwyz, home to Bettys chocolate suppliers, Felchlin, is both charming and beautiful. We arrived there in the middle of an unseasonal heat wave. In spite of this, there was still snow on the mountains – we weren’t in Kansas anymore! And whilst not quite the Land of Oz, Schwyz really is a place where magic happens.

When planning for this coming Mother’s Day with the clever Bettys elves who hand-pick items for our gift boxes and hampers, we set them a challenge: ‘Just how many delicious treats do you think you can fit into a Mother’s Day Gift Box?’

Another Christmas has passed and thoughts are now slowly turning towards springtime and the lighter nights and new growth. It always raises my spirits when I realise that the days are slowly getting longer and we have the first appearance of the white Snowdrops or the yellow Winter Jasmine.

We can thank St Valentine for many things, but, let’s face it, the fact that his feast day falls in chilly February definitely offers room for improvement. Still, our craft bakers and chocolatiers aren’t so easily swayed from thoughts of romance, and in our Valentine’s Gift Box we’ve created a collection so heart-warmingly delicious, winter weather will be the last thing on your beau's mind.

It’s a perennial question: flowers or chocolates? When it comes to Valentine’s Day gifts, we hope we’re not being too cheeky by suggesting that our With Love Chocolate Selection has both of these classic choices wrapped up.