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EAT THIS: FLOWER CHILD FUDGE
Flower Child Fudge is much more than a bar of chocolate. It’s a piece of art, two craft projects, and it might technically be good for you.
That’s a lot to pack into a piece of fudge, but every detail is thoughtfully inspired by creator Katie Belanger, the former owner of Honey B Market in downtown Santa Cruz, which closed last year.
Here’s how unwrapping my first piece of Flower Child Fudge went:
First, I carefully broke open the label, printed on handmade paper infused with California wildflower seeds. “Plant me!” the label says, along with instructions to keep it moist under a scant covering of wet soil. That’ll be a great activity to do with my two kids, I thought to myself.
The wrapping isn’t paper, parchment or plastic: it’s a 5-inch-by-5-inch piece of floral cloth. On the website, Belanger gives suggestions on how to upcycle the cloth, such as in art projects, or as a napkin. I kept it, inspired to finally learn to patch holes in my clothes.
The chocolate contains just five organic ingredients: whole medjool dates, unsweetened cacao, coconut, sea salt and vanilla. The surface of the chocolate is dotted with dried edible flower petals. It’s dense and fudgy, with a smooth texture and a gentle sweetness that lets some of the chocolate bitterness come through.
“It’s so reflective of me as a human,” said Belanger of her new product. An artist who is “obsessed with health,” she created the fudge because she wanted to have a whole-food chocolate without refined sugar. To make it, Belanger blends whole dates, including the skin, to sweeten the fudge. The added fiber prevents a blood sugar spike, she said.
She also makes the paper and prints it by hand, and uses cloth in honor of her late sister, who was a patchwork artist.
Belanger launched Flower Child Fudge earlier this year. It can be purchased online at flowerchildfudge.com ($8.99), and at 17 retailers in Santa Cruz County, Visit the site for more information, including craft project ideas.
BEST OF THE WEEK AHEAD
Below, find a curated list of the best food and drink events in Santa Cruz County for the coming week. At the top, I share my picks of unmissable local happenings.
The Lookout Santa Cruz app is available now in both the Apple App Store and Google Play Store. Learn more here.
NEWS OF THE WEEK
ICYMI – here are the food news stories from Lookout that you might have missed, plus important news from beyond our borders picked by yours truly.
- Lily Belli on Food: Gal/Valentine’s Day recommendations (Lookout)
- Santa Cruz wineries uncertain about status of Canadian exports after tariff backlash (Lookout)
- U.S. craft beers – brewed in steel, canned in aluminum – could get crushed by tariffs (CNN)
- How DEI pushback is reshaping the restaurant industry (Nation’s Restaurant News)