Sue Williams is our local practicing physician turned chocolatier, who for years now has wielded dark chocolate and organic ingredients for good, helping us coax virtue from a vice. She’s interested in the values of dark chocolate, the antioxidant properties we all love to tout, and at her Dr. Sue’s Chocolate in Grapevine, she makes small-batch, artisanal indulgences with natural, fresh ingredients, no refined sugar, and an emphasis on health benefits.
They include candied orange peel coated in dark chocolate (the adorable “orangettes”) and antioxidant-powered blueberry and ancho chile bark. Her original bark pairs dried cherries with native Texas pecans spiced with ancho chile powder, for a profile that’s sweet and spicy. There’s warmth in her bark with ginger and dried fig.
For the holidays, Williams dreamed up a s’mores-inspired bark that piles Belgian dark chocolate, organic graham crackers, and toasted house-made marshmallows into a rough, rustic tectonic plate, topped with applewood-smoked sea salt.
Reminds her of her years riding horses in East Texas and building campfires along dry creek beds with friends. I have no such memories. But I don’t need them to find her s’mores bark a little naughty and rather nice.
(Dr. Sue’s Chocolate is available at the shop in Grapevine, at Eatzi’s, or at Local Yocal in McKinney.)
