Dean's SweetsWhen Dean and Kristin Bingham started making truffles in their home 20 years ago, they never imagined their business would grow to two retail locations in Portland, each with its own commercial kitchen. Dean was looking for something to supplement his career in architecture when he started experimenting with two flavors of truffles: brandy and rum. “People would say, these are so good, you should sell them,” Dean says. “At some point, you foolishly believe them.”
Dean relates his experience in architecture to his success with chocolate. “The whole business of architecture is problem-solving,” he says. “Chocolate making has different challenges, but it’s still problem-solving.” While Dean focused on perfecting his technique, Kristin hired a graphic designer, started a website, and figured out packaging. “Dean was the chocolatier, and I had just gotten an MBA and was trying to figure out how to move to Maine,” Kristin says. “Finding a job is not easy, so why not start your own business?”
The couple opened their first retail location, a 650-square-foot space with commercial kitchen on Middle Street, in 2008. Six years later, they moved to a space twice the size, on Fore Street. Just five years after that, they expanded again, opening a second location on Cove Street. The couple admits it seems strange to have two retail spaces only one mile apart, but demand made it necessary. “We just couldn’t fit in enough people and equipment,” Kristin says. “We had a significant bottleneck that we needed to take care of.”
Among their most in-demand products are Dean’s Maine sea-salt caramels, hand dipped in dark or milk chocolate, which have a complex burnt-caramel taste similar to a European-style chocolate caramel. “Most caramels are basically made by adding butter, cream, and sugar together and cooking them all at once,” Dean says. “I actually burn the sugar to start, before adding my own invert sugar syrup, butter, and cream.” Dean cooks the caramels to about 270 degrees, way higher than the standard caramel.
Dean and Kristin are committed to using local ingredients. “It’s nice to keep the money moving around our local economy,” Dean says. The caramels are made with cream from Smiling Hill Farm, butter from Casco Bay Creamery, and sea salt from Maine Sea Salt Company, which pumps seawater into greenhouses and extracts the salt through solar evaporation.
Dean’s Sweets now makes more than 30 flavors of truffles, including milk and dark-chocolate varieties. They offer buttercreams, chocolate bars and squares, hot chocolate, and award-winning dark-chocolate hot-fudge sauce and sea-salt caramel sauce. In celebration of the company’s 20th year, they’ve been introducing one new product each month, including a Maine Sea Salt Caramel Popcorn, available with and without chocolate that they will continue to produce.
As their anniversary celebrations continue, Dean and Kristin are excited for a future that looks — and tastes — sweet. “Chocolate, to some degree, is a health food,” Dean says. “People may worry about it having calories, but it makes you feel good and can even give you a mental boost. I think that’s a pretty positive thing.”