A Confectioner You Should Know: Truffle Truffle

Americans love nostalgic foods, and few things articulate this quite like a s'more. The sumptuous campfire medley of toasted marshmallow, crackly graham cracker, and gooey chocolate is an iconic snack in the Americana lexicon. A few years ago, a company called Truffle Truffle debuted in Chicago, specializing in gourmet packaged s'mores and effectively yanking on heartstrings throughout the city. Nowadays, the company has come a long way, and owner Nicole Greene is adeptly shaping the face of culinary nostalgia in Chicago (and elsewhere).

Highfalutin s'mores is an interesting endeavor for a woman who has lived all over the country, with an intimidatingly important career in the federal government. Basically, after years of performing such a high-stress job, she was ready for a change, and that change came in the form of the pastry arts program at the French Culinary Institute. Going from government to pastries is about as 180 as you can get, like a truckdriver deciding he wants to become a gymnastics coach. Getting involved in the world of pastries allowed Greene to alleviate herself of all the pivotal tasks attached to her prior career and re-focus on something more wholesome and less detrimental. If she underbakes a cookie, no one's going to war over it. Truffle Truffle originated in 2009 with a slightly different direction for their s'mores.

Greene's original s'mores are totally different than they are today. At first, they consisted of two flavored shortbread cookies and a flavored marshmallow, all dipped in chocolate. The way she differentiated each s'more was by flavoring the marshmallow, but she found that it was difficult to flavor the marshmallows enough to stand out. It was time for a change. After working to develop the perfect s'more, one that would allow her to flavor them and create a diverse line of confections, she came up with the ultimate recipe. The base is a graham-flavored sugar cookie seasoned with cinnamon, brown sugar, and honey. The flavored element in her s'mores is the chocolate crema, a creamy and decadent concoction she infuses with flavors such as fresh mint or gingerbread spice. The top layer of the s'more is a potent vanilla marshmallow infused with smoke and salt, echoing the smoky flavors of a boisterous campfire. It's all then enrobed in chocolate. Compared to their initial iteration, the flavors burst and each element is thoughtfully curated to mimic an essential element in a classic fireside s'more.

(Truffle Truffle s'mores. Photo: Matt Kirouac)

S'mores are available in dark or milk chocolate flavors year round, augmented with a selection of new seasonal flavors each month. This might include pumpkin spice in the fall, gingerbread around the holidays, and spiced Mexican chocolate to warm up winter. In February, she even had a Champagne and raspberry theme for Valentine's Day. I wonder if anyone proposed by sticking a ring in a s'more? This month is a tropical theme, with passion fruit s'mores ("perfect balance of tart and sweet," says Greene) and coconut-key lime, a vacation-y s'more made with cream of coconut and reduced lime juice. Next month, look forward to Father's Day-themed beer and pretzel s'mores, featuring a pretzel bar infused with honey, butter, and salt, a milk chocolate and Rogue Chocolate Stout crema, and a beer marshmallow, all glazed in milk chocolate. For July, Greene is thinking about margarita s'mores. If there was a way to convince her to make flavored s'mores for every food, I would eat nothing but Truffle Truffle.

(Top left: root beer float s'more; top right: milk chocolate; bottom left: dark chocolate; bottom right: mint chip. Photo: Matt Kirouac)

Truffle Truffle stocks their products at a number of Chicago stores, as well as a few across the country. Greene's first account was Southport Grocery & Cafe, which is also the place where I happened to try them for the first time and fall madly in love. Her wares can now also be found at The Goddess and Grocer, Pastoral Artisan Cheese, Bread, & Wine, Foodease Market, Marion Street Cheese Market, and others, as well as Lollies in Fair Haven, New Jersey, and Sugarlicious in Denver. S'mores are the centerpiece of the operation, but Truffle Truffle also makes brittles, caramels, and of course, truffles.

Everything about the company is dripping in whimsy, from the quirky name to the cute cartoon-y packaging, which makes Bazooka Joe look like a complete amateur. "Flavors speak to the whimsicality of the brand," says Greene, who is constantly drumming up enticing new ideas like a sane version of Willy Wonka. Even though the company is going into its first full summer under its new guise, Truffle Truffle has already experienced an explosion of popularity, and Greene and co. have had to meet order demands from all across the country, working long hours at their Skokie production kitchen. She's even received requests to ship overseas, which she can't currently do due to the constraints of shipping meltable products long distances. Ah, the woes of popularity.

It's pretty extraordinary that a company could construct a booming business out of one of the humblest comforting confections. But in the few years Truffle Truffle has been in existence, the company has grown by leaps and bounds, catapulting s'mores into the forefront of Chicago's nostalgia obsession. Complete world takeover seems like the next logical step.