Castle, of Fairmount, brought more than 80 truffles and candy pieces Monday for the tournament, and they were soon scooped up. They went fast, which is a good sign for how delicious they were.
Castle also will be bringing more trays of candy today, Friday and Saturday.
Castle and his wife, Amy, can be seen at Danville farmers’ markets and other events selling the homemade goodies. Amy helps sometimes set up and sell, but Bryan is the candy maker.
“I make it all,” he said.
He started seven years ago. He uses the cottage food license the state offers to have an at-home business. In the last three years, the license changed, so it’s been more accommodable for people to succeed with the new laws, he added. Before, he had to get special permits all the time to make and sell his candies. Now, a permit lasts the whole year, and he can sell anywhere in Illinois and online.
“It’s really helped businesses like me,” he said.
He started making candies, with his mom being a cookie maker. She had health problems and would just make cookies all the time and give them to people, Castle said.
At Christmastime, they would make peanut butter cups, buckeyes, fudge and cookies and give them on trays to people.
“When she passed, I kind of carried the tradition along,” Castle said.
A place where he previously worked also was having a small vendor event. He thought he’d try selling some of his homemade candies. He made up four or five containers, made $100, and then he thought maybe there’s something to this, and he could do more with it to supplement his income.
He would bring items into work, and he’d try out different recipes. Co-workers and others wanted more.
It just kind of spread by word of mouth, and he started going to more vendor events and the Danville Farmers’ Market. Now he’s been with the markets almost five years.
“It was a fun hobby that’s kind of gone bigger,” he said.
Now he has about 40 recipes, he’s lost count, some seasonal and small variations, in which he makes his candies.
He said he’s not making tons of money from it, but it’s taken off a lot more than he anticipated when he started doing it.
“I thought I would just do some things here and there and stuff. Have 10 or 12 things,” he said. “Now I’m always looking for ideas of ways to expand it a little bit. I don’t want to get too broad. Then everyone will want this and this, and I just don’t have the time …”
He makes truffles; cake pops; brownies such as in the shape of a heart for Valentine’s Day; candy bars, including homemade versions of Twix and Payday and a Snickers version with crunchy peanut butter; and chocolate-covered pretzels. He rotates items at the different markets.
Castle makes everything in his kitchen. He said sometimes it doesn’t seem like he has enough space because the chocolate gets everywhere.
Last year was the first year he worked at the tournament and brought some items. This year was the first time he was an official food donor, and he’s bringing whatever he can donate.
“With us, Rhonda (Ellis with the Danville Area Visitors Bureau) was really great,” he said. She said what can you bring?
He’s brining four different flavors of truffles each time he’s bringing items in.
“I thought that’d be enough, that they’d be able to fill in the gaps (Tuesday and Thursday), but apparently, they went over really well,” Castle said.
Today, he’s going to bring one of his more popular truffle flavors of pecan pie, in addition to chocolate chip cookie dough, which also is pretty popular, mint Oreo and cookies and cream. Another flavor is lemon.
He just made a new one, too, for Friday with crushed up animal crackers and cream-cheese icing.
“I needed another white chocolate,” he said, about also making strawberry shortcake pieces, but he didn’t want the fresh strawberries to sit out too long. Most of his white chocolate recipes are Christmas flavors. He also has a sugar cookie candy recipe.
“Sometimes I’ll just get inspiration online and make them my own,” he said.
Some can take a longer time to make than others, up to a few hours, with making and rolling them, putting them in the refrigerator overnight, dipping them, decorating and then packaging them.
He doesn’t have the steadiest hand, he said, about decorating. He wants to work on that a little more.
Unfortunately, he’s had to raise his prices on his candies at markets and events this year due to supply price increases on cocoa and other items. He went through almost 100 pounds of chocolate between Thanksgiving and Christmas last year with special orders and vendor events.
He said making the truffles for the NJCAA was an opportunity to help with a community event, “because I always try to help the community the best I can.”
