Century-old metal molds guide Lewiston chocolatier

LEWISTON – Candyman Roger Allen sometimes wonders how many bunnies have sprung from his century-old molds.

He fills the metal with warm chocolate, slowly turning them until the candy fills every crack and cranny. He imagines someone doing the same thing in 1910, working the same long hours to create treats for Easter morning.

It’s something he hopes to share.

Dozens of the antique molds decorate the shelves of his Main Street store – Mary’s Candy Shop. The molds, combined with an old ribbon-candy machine and a taffy cutter, create what Allen calls his “little museum.”

“I wanted to show people the history of this shop,” said Allen, who bought the store in 1995. “These are my show-and-tell.” Framed pictures of the three previous owners, including James and Mary Lafkiotes, who founded the shop in 1933, hang from the wall behind the cash register.

The metal molds, which appraisers say pre-date the store by more than two decades, must have already been used when the couple started the business, Allen said.

The molds will continue to be used for as long as they last, he promised.

They range in height from a few inches to nearly 2 feet, the tallest being a bunny nicknamed “Slim Jim.”

The solid rabbit that pops out is made of nearly a pound and a half of chocolate. The hollow one isn’t much lighter.

Machine-made chocolate bunnies are typically made with a thin candy shell. It’s a shell too thin for Allen’s handmade method, which includes turning the mold as the liquid chocolate cools and draining the extra.

“It’s a heavy hollow because the walls are thicker,” he said.

Each rabbit takes hours, making for long days. On a good day, one mold can shape three bunnies.

For Allen, the Easter season is marked by 80-hour weeks making chocolate bunnies, eggs and lambs. He also makes baskets, roasts nuts and dips malted balls in one of two contraptions, known as the big and little dippers.

It starts on Feb. 15, the day after Valentine’s Day, and continues until Easter afternoon. There are no days off. And on most evenings, Allen returns to the shop after dinner.

His bunnies never multiply on their own. After all, they are all male.

“I joke that someday I’ll introduce a female,” he said.