Photography: Luke Owen Smith.
It’s long been considered the food of love, so it’s no surprise that chocolate is what first drew Erin Todd and Clayton McErlane together.
“Excellent single men are hard to come by in Wellington, so when a new man moves to town, the grapevine starts talking,” confides Erin, 47, who works alongside her now-husband in their award-winning chocolaterie Baron Hasselhoff’s.
Back in 2016, a friend of Erin’s met Clayton at a fancy-dress party and told her about him, saying, “Erin, I just met your future husband and he was dressed as a lamp!”
However, it turned out Erin and Clayton had already met a few months prior, when she was looking to rent his chocolate-making kitchen for a wellness brand she then owned.
“He was immune to my perkiness,” she grins.
Clayton adds, “If I’m in work mode, I ain’t got time for that. I’ve got my blinkers on because I’m very serious about chocolate!”
A different kind of party moment
But despite Clayton shrugging her off, Erin kept crushing on him and thankfully when she saw him again – sans lamp costume – at another party, the buzz was electric.
“Because of what my friend had said, I was super-flirty,” she admits.
Yet after recently going through the end of a 10-year relationship, the chocolate maker continued to play it cool. While Erin went home from the party without a number, luckily Clayton, 48, plucked up the courage to message her.
He smiles, “I slid into Erin’s DMs and said, ‘Drop by the shop and say hi’. She did and we chatted for ages.”
After a first date of dinner and cocktails, it wasn’t until their second meet-up, when they went mountain biking, that the pair really bonded.
“On that date, I discovered that Erin might’ve loved biking, but she couldn’t turn left,” Clayton laughs.
Erin adds, “It was super-fun and I survived, even though I fell off a couple of times.”
Where things turned serious
By their third date, the pair were smitten and soon a shared trip to Mexico to explore the origins of chocolate sealed the deal. Shortly after their adventure, Erin made a career switch to support Clayton and Baron Hasselhoff’s took off. Now their boutique brand is stocked in more than 60 stores nationwide and they have their own chocolaterie in Berhampore called The Baron’s Emporium.
While originally they had plans for a massive wedding, these were scotched by COVID, with the couple instead saying “I do” during an intimate beach gathering at Princess Bay.
“It was a stunningly beautiful day,” enthuses Erin.
“And we hope to have the big wedding one of these days, but we’ve been too busy.”
Partners in business and life
While working with a spouse can often prove too hard, Erin and Clayton know they make a solid team.
“We temper each other,” says Clayton.
Laughs Erin, “We’re using chocolate language! And he gets very handsy at work sometimes. We’re lucky there’s no HR department.”
“We are the HR department,” grins Clayton.
Where creativity pays off
That penchant for keeping things interesting translates to their chocolates. Two of their unique creations were recently recognised in the NZ Vegan Chocolate Awards, where their spiced almond chocolate bar won silver, and their yuzu oil and macadamia block was awarded bronze in the Bean to Bar: Flavours & Inclusions category.
Recently they’ve also introduced a range of adult-only chocolates. The Cheeky Dick Pack – which, as the name suggests, is a cellophane bag filled to the brim with phallic caramel-centred chocolates – came about because of a rather mischievous employee.
“Our chocolatier is a lovely gay man, who is always trying to shape things into penises,” laughs Clayton.
Shares Erin, “My dad died of cancer and we first made them for a fundraiser for prostate cancer. It was so popular that people kept writing to us, asking, ‘Please can we have a bag of dicks?’”
Keeping things light in the kitchen
While Clayton admits it’s “quite a sight” when they get together to hand-shape 100 penises in the kitchen, it helps keep the humour alive.
“It’s pretty funny,” admits Clayton.
“We’re always trying to get a good breadth of styles and for everyone to feel seen!”
More than just novelty chocolates
Other products in their racy range include a vegan, gluten-free chocolate body paint.
“We made it for Valentine’s one year because when you look at other chocolate body paint, it’s got all kinds of weird stuff in it,” explains Erin.
“We used it not too long ago and I was like, ‘We have to double the price of this!’ The brush has a little nobbly bit that you can massage your back with…”
“Or anywhere else!” adds Clayton mischievously.
The pair’s flirtatiousness is in keeping with chocolate’s origins. It’s said that Emperor Montezuma II, ruler of the Aztecs, used a cacao-based drink to fuel his romantic pursuits. More than 500 years later, Erin and Clayton are proof that chocolate can indeed still melt hearts.
To check out the other top vegan chocolates in Aotearoa, head to vegansociety.org.nz.
