Aimee Deimerly-Snyder: Transcript

Lillie Mae Chocolates, Marshalltown
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Our caramel is definitely our specialty. It is done in copper kettles. It is slow cooked. We use as many local products as we can, so we get fresh cream from the Picket Fence Creamery. We use fresh butter. And I really think that it makes a difference. It just gives the cream that little extra something.

My name is Aimee Deimerly-Snyder. I’m from Missouri originally, but we ended up in Marshalltown when I was about five years old. I’ve always been an entrepreneur, had my own business. And then a colleague actually asked me what would be the ideal business for me, what would I want to do in my dreams? I kind of paused, and I said, “Well, something like Lillie Mae Chocolate.

When I was about 23, 24, I had my website design marketing company across the street. And I was pregnant with my first child, so that would be about eight years ago. And I fell in love with the caramel apples! I just had to have one every single day!

The other thing that let me know what was so special about Lillie Mae is my grandmother. She would get boxes of chocolates for Christmas because everybody knew how much she loved chocolates; and my dad, of course, would take Lillie Mae chocolates to her. She would not share with anybody the Lillie Mae chocolate.

Lillie Mae Chocolate has such a rich history. It is just one of those places that’s like taking a step back in time. We were founded in 1939. It was—George Demopolus had it for two years. He named the store for his daughter, Lillie Mae. And at that point it was both a cafe and a candy store. It was a Marshalltown institution. Everybody going through the ranks would come into Lillie Mae and love hanging out.

So Lillie Mae is just rich in history. We still use the antique candy-making equipment. We’ve brought in some new methods of making candy also, but we still dip on the marble slabs every day. We still cook our fudge and our caramel in copper kettles. Still do it by hand, although I did make one change. I did bring in an automatic stirring machine, so what that allows me to do is—while I’m cooking the caramel, I can also be making other things in the kitchen.

Buck and Georgia Dates were the previous owners, the owners that I had bought the store from. They bought the store from her father. And Georgia grew up in the candy store. She was always around it, although she did not—her dream was not to own a candy store. She actually wanted to be an actress in LA. So she went to LA with Buck, and they followed their dreams.

In about, I’m guessing, 1981, maybe 1983, something like that, Georgia’s dad wanted to retire. And at that point it was a decision of whether or not to close the store or have Buck and Georgia come back. And they decided to return to Marshalltown. She learned how to cook from her dad. She learned how to dip the chocolates from her mother.  

Her being there is very valuable for me because there’s candies that we make maybe three times a year. And I really need to refresh with her how to make them. So it’s always nice having her there, plus she’s just a great calming influence.

If you can picture the chocolate coming out onto a marble slab—and really, the chocolate kind of cascades out of your hand onto the marble slab. It’s almost like playing with a mud pie. So what we do is we move the chocolate around in a circular motion, and what we’re doing is called tempering the chocolate. So the chocolate will be at—between 110 and 120 degrees, and the marble will help dissipate the heat from the chocolate. And it will bring it down to about 85 degrees.

So after we’ve moved this puddle of chocolate around, what we will do is start throwing the balls of cream in there. So it’s little like bright-colored balls, and then we’ll flip them about five times through the chocolate. They get a little shake to get the excess chocolate off, and then we put a signature on using our thumb or our pinkie. It just depends on the letter what we actually use for the signature.

It was very frustrating for me to learn how to dip the chocolates, and very fulfilling and fun at the same time. We put a signature on every piece. So butter will have a “B,” amaretto will have an “A.”

Georgia is such a sweet person. She said, “You know, Aimee, my handwriting looks different from your handwriting, just the way the signature on the chocolates looks different. So you need to stop being so frustrated and just accept that your “A” is going to look different from my “A.”