Them apples

Like a lot of local young people, Rachelle and Aaron Blackmer moved to Seattle following high school in Spokane and college at SFCC and UI. While Aaron completed graduate work in graphic design, Rachelle worked at a jeweler’s shop in a mall, where she discovered a ROCKY MOUNTAIN CHOCOLATE FACTORY shop.

“I would buy an Apple Pie apple every week,” says Rachelle. “I also bought Aaron chocolate for special occasions and just because. His favorite is nut clusters.”

Fortunately for Spokane Valley, Rachelle couldn’t imagine being deprived of her treats after moving back home, so the couple decided to open their own franchise. “We make a lot of the stuff here,” she says. “Our main chocolates [including jellies, toffees and truffles] are from our corporate office, in Durango, Colorado, but they’re pretty much all handmade as well.”

Of the made-in-house fudge, my favorite is the Champagne Fudge ($15/pound), a creamy, rich and smooth milk chocolate with a unique flavor that’s surprisingly not overly sweet. “We add a chocolate liqueur to it, which is a very tart chocolate that tones down that sweetness,” Rachelle explains.

A shiny display case holds enough other candies — truffles, English toffee, nut clusters, caramels and bark, as well as sugar-free selections — to make Willy Wonka blush. Imagine a fluffy marshmallow on a wooden stick, dipped in soft-but-chewy caramel, rolled in crispy rice and enrobed in milk chocolate until it’s close to twice its original size: Behold the Rocky Mountain Nugget ($3).

And think you know caramel apples? Wait till you’re confronted with an enormous, well-lit display case holding row upon tidy row of crispy-fresh Granny Smiths dipped in caramel and previously unimagined combinations of nuts, chocolate chips, coconut, marshmallows, sprinkles and on and on.

“We do all the dipping ourselves,” says Rachelle. Her favorite, the Apple Pie apple, is “dipped in caramel, then white confection and then rolled in brown sugar and cinnamon. It tastes just like apple pie.” Apple prices range from $4 to $7, depending on the number of toppings.

A third case holds a dozen flavors of hard ice cream for cones and such. The Pumpkin Pie ice cream tastes just like pumpkin pie, and the Eggnog tastes just like eggnog.

I didn’t sample the Superman ice cream. Maybe I should have.

Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory, 506 N. Sullivan Rd., Suite E, Spokane Valley, is open Mon-Sat 10 am-9 pm and Sun noon-8 pm. Visit rmcf.com or call 927-RMCF (7623).