Holiday Gift Guide: Sweet treats

With Christmas fast approaching and shopping days running short, it’s time once again to do a local holiday gift guide, presenting a variety of locally-made products and local stores and shops to hopefully give you a number of ideas for your shopping needs.

Candy and chocolatesSo far I’ve covered beer and cheese among gift guide ideas and now of course it’s time for candy and sweets—because you can’t have Christmas without candy! (Plus, you know, food and drink. They always make for potentially great gifts, in my opinion.)

The first store to come to mind for locally-owned and crafted candies and chocolates is of course Goody’s: started in Sunriver in 1984, it has over the years grown into some eight locations (including ones in Boise and Beaverton!) but their downtown “anchor” store is likely the one everyone thinks of first. With fudge, chocolates, caramels, truffles, brittle, and much, much more, you’ll be hard-pressed to find something that doesn’t satisfy that sweet tooth.

Does anyone in your life like frozen yogurt? We’ve got a lot of froyo places here in town but Cuppa Yo was the first of the current wave, and currently have three locations: westside (Newport Avenue), eastside (over by The Phoenix), and Sisters. Obviously you can’t wrap up a frozen cup (or pint, or gallon) of froyo as a gift, but gift cards always work!

Pegasus Gourmet Chocolates is located in the Wagner Mall on NE Third Street (and have been for a number of years) and features a nice assortment handmade chocolates as well as saltwater taffy. This is one of those stores you walk into and immediately start drooling, and I’m quite sure any chocolate lover will love you forever if you bring them a gift box of these confections.

If you or someone you’re buying for is more into natural, organic foods, check out Jem Raw Chocolates: they are indeed raw (not heated more than 118 degrees) and combined with natural palm sugar and coconut rather than refined sugars and milk. You can find their goodies at Jackson’s Corner, Nature’s, Newport Avenue Market, Whole Foods, and Devors among other places.

Here’s a candymaker I found by searching that wasn’t aware of before: Tricia’s True Confections. They’re located along with 2nd Street Eats & Sweets at 1289 NE 2nd Street where they sell their chocolate creations (mostly truffles) along with other deli fare. You can also purchase their wares online.

Finally, a nod to the locally-owned-but-franchise/commercial shops, Powell’s downtown and Sweet Tooth Candy Shoppe in the Old Mill District. I know this isn’t strictly within the local-everything aspect of the gift guide I was shooting for, but for sheer variety and (in the case of Powell’s at least) novelty I couldn’t help but include them. These would make great stocking stuffer stops.

2 comments

  1. Blooms & Sweets on South HWY 97 next to Blockbuster makes their own fudge (and it is heavenly!). They have a lot of bulk candy and fresh flowers too, but the fudge alone is worth the visit, and they’ll put it in a cute little box for you to use as a stocking stuffer.

  2. Got to include Ida’s Cupcakes – they have specially decorated cupcakes and make tiny cupcakes that are fairly reasonably priced and made to order. Plus, they made a “dope” cupcake of Snoop the other day:)

Leave a Reply