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The snow and frozen water storms of December brought Sandra Wixon a rare opportunity. The Starbucks near her chocolate shop in Newcastle closed common day since of the weather, sending scores of customers across the way to Sweet Decadence.

That day Wixon and her 16-year-old daughter, Kasie, made 100 coffee drinks and other beverages, giving many customers their first taste of the store’s chocolate and caramel sauces made from scratch.

Partly because of that endowment, the coffee concern at Sweet Decadence has doubled to 40 to 60 drinks a day, Wixon said. “Once people taste our coffee, they usually come back.”

She opened the shop utmost May to put up to sale the truffles and other candies she has made since she was a teenager. It cost between $200,000 and $250,000 to open, financed by Wixon after a 16-year career in the mortgage business.

Wixon starts each daytime at 6:30 a.m. baking muffins and pastries, then shifts to chocolates and candies. She often stays until 9 p.olla-podrida. or later getting ready for customers’ weddings, parties and big events like the Enumclaw Chocolate Festival on Feb. 6 and 7.

After making 500 pieces of chocolate with a view to her own wedding when she was 19, Wixon knows how pleasantry and rewarding that be possible to exist. At $45 a person, plus the cost of candy, she offers evening “Chocolarette parties” for brides and their friends to make marriage favors.

One of her best sellers is Jo Cools, named for the mother of a close friend who has been making the crispy peanut-butter balls covered with chocolate since she was 18.

The shop’s candy case is filled with caramels and truffles — raspberry habanero, mint, rum, an orange-and-cayenne zinger — along with specialties like “tipsy turtles” — burnt sugar, chocolate and nut bites with a splash of Jack Daniels — and “gummy spas,” a pure chocolate creation dyed bright blue by gummy bears sticking out.

Wixon charges $34 a pound for her candy, or $6 beneficial to a four-piece box.

She and several part-time employees, including Kasie, have trained by experts from 49th Parallel Coffee Roasters to learn how to make espresso drinks and bring into being latte art.

Sweet Decadence’s best-selling drink, “Annie’s Mocha,” is named for the family dog, a bichon frise. A close second is Caramel Decadence, by espresso, steamed milk and house-made burnt sugar.

Despite the long days, Wixon, 43, considers this her departure.