The
Dallas Morning News
Wednesday, February 12, 2003
By Cathy Barber, Texas Taste Editor
At a church kitchen somewhere in Carrollton, Kay Harris and her disciples meet at night to package Sin In A Box. Then Ms. Harris sells her Sins on the Internet.
By day, she works in information technology. But on the side, she makes chocolate truffles in eight flavors, with wicked names such as Hoochie Mamma and Bad Boy. She rents space in the church's commercial kitchen, usually on a Friday night, and with the help of family and friends, makes about 800 truffles.
"We made sin in the church kitchen," she says. The pastor "knows my name, but I don't think he knows the company name." And she didn't mention the church's name, so maybe he will stay blissfully ignorant.
Ms. Harris started Sin In A Box about a year ago. One night, her family decided to learn to make truffles. They pulled some recipes off the Internet and started experimenting. At first, she gave the truffles away at work. As people clamored for more and more, she realized that sin sells. So she started Sin In A Box.
The truffles come in eight flavors with names such as Bootylicious (white chocolate with coconut flakes in semisweet chocolate with chocolate sprinkles) and Wild Man (strawberry filling in white chocolate with red sprinkles). The Virgin has a vanilla center in a coating of white chocolate; buy a box of eight and one of the Virgins will have a cherry in the center.
"Honestly, the names came first," says Ms. Harris, who lives in Dallas. "We had the basic recipe. The names came next, and then we just customized the flavors to match the names."
So that's how Sugar Daddy came to be a brandy-flavored dark chocolate filling in semisweet chocolate, rolled in powdered sugar. The Cinner is cinnamon, of course, in a coating of milk chocolate. A friend of Ms. Harris drops one in her coffee every day. The truffle fillings are creamy with a slight tang from cream cheese. For the chocolate part, Ms. Harris prefers Guittard. For now, Sin In A Box is a side-line, but Ms. Harris hopes to build it into a full-time job and eventually open a store.
She has learned a lot in the past year, she says, echoing the sentiments of many a food entrepreneur: "If I'd known then what I know now.."
She's been through three Web site designers, and she's on her second package design. "It really is way more than meets the eye," she says. "The recipe and the truffles are just part of the business." She and her crew have been busy trying to meet the Valentine's rush; the rest of the year they have truffle-making sessions as often as need to fill orders. They make them on Friday night and ship them by priority mail on Saturday.........
The operation is "very unsophisticated at this time," she says, "but we are having more fun."
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click picture to enlarge
The Harris
Family cookin' up some Sin in the church kitchen with Al Roker, September,
2003for his Food Network Show:
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"Shrekolate" with Sin in a Box
truffle nose
Contest Winner in the Worth1000 Photoshop Contest
Image created by Anders Jensen of Sweden
September, 2004
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Sin in a
Box was featured in the "Want It, Need It, Gotta Have It"
section of Playgirl Magazine, April 2005
Sorry, we can't show you any pictures here.
All rights reserved. Sin in a Box 2002