When Pastry Chef Jocelyn Dubuke had the idea to start up Atlanta Candy Kitchen (ACK), she knew two things: it had to be fun, and it had to be an inventive way to make people rethink nostalgic candy from their childhood.
Dubuke, the founder of JARDÍ Chocolates, has been crafting hand-painted filled chocolates, chocolate bars, and chocolate-covered snacks since opening the business in 2015. She uses no preservatives, additives, or dyes in her candy-making process, including the cocoa-butter-based paint for styling the chocolates.
“I like using real ingredients. You can’t make it better than what nature gave you.”
But Dubuke saw a need for something more in the Atlanta candy market: candy that brought out a child-like sense of joy for her customers. The “traditional treats, elevated” slogan of ACK refers to this sensibility as the “little sister” who is “the life of the party.”
Dubuke admits, however, that opening Atlanta Candy Kitchen really came down to her love for turtles.
Dubuke took on her first turtle adventure in 2023, a quest that added a new member to her kitchen staff: an enrobing line machine affectionally called “Lucy.” “Luna,” a tempering machine, had already been holding down the fort. Before Lucy’s arrival, Dubuke dipped every turtle by hand. That amounted to nearly 2,500 hand-dipped candies.
After giving a few out as Christmas gifts, Dubuke’s family encouraged her to sell the turtles. While Dubuke runs ACK and JARDÍ solo, her family plays an integral role in her candy businesses.
“I lucked out because my brother is a mechanical engineer. He’s talked me through rewiring things [on the machines]. My sister is my sounding board for ideas,” Dubuke told Rough Draft. “My mom likes to taste test everything, and my dad also owns his own business, so he’s kind of my sounding board for business decisions.”
While most turtles default to incorporating milk powder and unroasted pecans, Dubuke takes a vastly different approach to her turtles. She starts by making the caramel herself. It’s a 1.5-hour, slow-cooking process. She also roasts pecans to bring out just the right flavor notes and uses heavy cream and butter to produce the candy’s rich chocolate coating and caramel center, giving the turtles a perfectly soft and chewy texture.
But there’s another secret: salt.
As Dubuke sees it, her turtles are seasoned rather than heavily salted, resulting in “a very deep-cooked dairy flavor” in the chocolate-covered nut clusters.
And Dubuke’s turtles were only the beginning. Atlanta Candy Kitchen also offers chocolate-covered pretzels. Dubuke’s turtles and pretzels come dipped in dark, milk, or white chocolate.
She’ll eventually sell fudge, including peanut butter and peanut butter crunch, and has a few other unnamed confections in the works. One such candy Dubuke is currently developing begins as an airy burst of vanilla-bean marshmallow and finishes with a base of bright passionfruit blended with white chocolate. It’s impossibly light with a mix of subtle, rich vanilla and hints of tartness lingering from the fruit. A strawberry version should be available soon.
“[They are] kind of play on s’mores. Chocolate and marshmallow are just happy together. But I didn’t want to do the cookie or graham cracker element…and again, real ingredients. Egg whites. That Ugandan vanilla.” She sources her vanilla from chocolatier Xocolatl in Atlanta.
Dubuke tapped into childhood nostalgia in other ways, too, for ACK. She collaborated with graphic designer Stephanie Rachmeleron on the packaging, riffing on the candy cigarette boxes from the 1980s but with a modern, clean twist. Two turtles come packaged together in a transparent box the size of a deck of cards with a playful logo using Atlanta’s iconic Ferris wheel with a swirl of peppermint candy at the center in front, and a take on the city seal incorporating the ACK initials on the back.
A duo of turtles costs $8.
“Cooking and baking was always my way of connecting with people. So, I want people to be happy when they taste my food; I want them to say ‘Oh my god, this was worth the money.’ And I want it to bring a smile to people’s faces, adults or kids.”
Atlanta Candy Kitchen’s website goes live May 6 and orders can be shipped to people’s homes or picked up from JARDÍ in Chamblee. To keep updated on new candies, Dubuke suggests following ACK on Instagram.