Our History

Here are two of the master notebooks left to me by my grandfather, Earl Remington Davenport. Some of the inscriptions in these books include formulas dictated in German from Julius Rudolph Franzen. Hardly a day goes by that we don't refer to these old tattered notebooks. I feel Julius and Grandpa are next to me every time I open these old ledgers.

Most of these master recipes were recorded by my grandfather between 1927 and 1965. Here you see the confectioner's cryptic formulas written in code. The Davenport/Franzen collaboration produced more than 800 recipes which were recorded here and in various smaller journals that Grandpa kept until his death in 1971.

After Grandpa retired from the retail business, he continued to travel across the country teaching and lecturing on home candymaking.

With the addition of our own formulas and experiments, the Davenport/Franzen confectionary  tradition at Dilettante Chocolates is now in its 108th year.