‘Making toffee is like a child going in a candy store... I’m so lucky I can do it’

It’s crunchy, buttery, sweet and salty; and at this year’s prestigious Blas na hÉireann Irish Food Awards (Blas), the Dark Chocolate Toffee Popcorn Brittle made by Cork-based Second Street Bakeshop scooped an impressive six prizes, including two Golds, Best Artisan Product, and Best in Munster.

Created by Cork woman Claire Keane in 2021, Second Street Bakehouse is no stranger to prizes. In 2022, her original Sea Salt Toffee Brittle Milk Chocolate won gold at Blas, and in 2023 received a star at the Great Taste Awards.

Prior to this, Claire had had great success in San Francisco where she had lived and worked for 20 years, establishing Clairesquares with a shortbread caramel cookie so perfect that iconic ice cream brand, Häagen Dazs, built a whole new ice cream flavour around it.

Coming back to Ireland and her Cork roots, the last thing on her mind was starting a new business, let alone a multi-award winning one. But during the covid lockdowns, she returned to the kitchen, making care packages of treats for friends and family, and fell in love with toffee-making.

“Everyone I sent a care package to said the toffee was their favourite,” recalls Claire. “I was inspired by candy in the States. It’s really the home of toffees, brittles, butter crunch, almond roca; all those candies that aren’t as readily available here.

“I needed to do something different and saw a gap in the market. I knew toffee, so why not try and start a business and see how it goes? That’s where Second Street Bakeshop came from.”

The Irish preference for toffee has traditionally been for soft chewy caramel, equalled only by the seemingly national obsession with salted caramel. But for Claire, the crunchy texture of brittle was everything.

“Daim Bar is the original; I always loved that as a kid, so it was natural for me to lean into toffee brittle because it’s hankering back to being a six year old.”

Claire learned how to make top notch brittle from a friend of hers in California (who had a confectionery business) and decided to give it a go.

In 2022, Claire entered her brittle into Blas na hÉireann for the first time.

“I was brand new to the Irish food industry,” says Claire. “Finding my feet after coming back later in life and starting over building a community is very tough. Blas was a way to find that community.

“The quality of food produced here is very high, so to be a finalist [with the brittle] I was really chuffed. My sister, Anne-Marie, said I needed to take the news seriously and get myself down to Dingle.”

To Dingle Claire did go, and not only did her product win gold – the best in the country – but Second Street Bakeshop was also awarded Best Startup. At the time, Claire’s fledgling business had a staff of one. “It was a phenomenal start for Second Street. To know I was on the right path with good headwinds working in my favour was confidence- building,” she says.

But behind the celebrations and success, Claire’s first win was tinged with sadness.

“My dad had died just three days earlier. We had buried him and then I went to Dingle. I was quite shell-shocked, so when we got the awards, everything was suddenly so different. For the last five months leading into Dingle, we had been taking care of him at home. He had terminal cancer... A lot had happened, and I asked myself: where am I going with this business?”

Claire signed up to the New Frontiers course, designed for those with prior experience of running a business wanting to see if a new idea, concept or product has potential to thrive.

“It really shakes your head and gives you direction. You take what you need from it, but there is something for everyone. I would recommend it. That was in 2022; the following April, I started going into retail and did the Food Academy with Supervalu. It was a slow burner with a lot of in-store tastings. But by the following year, 2024, that’s when it started to shift gears,” says Claire.

Through it all, Claire says she has always felt her father close to her, guiding her along.

“The first day I walked into New Frontiers, one of the students I was sharing a little lab room with said: ‘Hi, my name is Michael Keane’. That’s my dad’s name! I still feel him with me.”

Claire says nothing is worth doing unless you’re going all in.

“I think it helps because you get across the finish line if you give 100%. Just showing up like that in life generally is better for you and the people around you, and the outcome is always better.

“The toffee is very personal, and very difficult because it’s so affected by climate and we live in such a moist place in Cork especially. Heat, humidity, temperature all play a factor, and those nuances change how we experience the toffee in the mouth,” explains Claire.

“I want to eat the best products, so I want to share the best products. For example, making vegan brittle is even harder than regular brittle, but I felt that market was under-served. I saw in California how they have a better selection of plant-based foods, so it was a personal mission to the solution. It’s still a tricky one to make, but I’m happy with it.”

Over the years, the range of confectionary has grown with different flavoured brittles from mint to hazelnut, dark and milk chocolate, and her trick-to-make plant-based range.

Last year, she created a toffee popcorn (which this author found truly addictive) and scooped yet another Blas, but took the commercial decision to stop making it. Still, the product inspired by it, Toffee Popcorn Brittle, was what led to Claire and her team taking home a slew of awards this year.

“As a by-product [of our Toffee Popcorn], we would get pieces of toffee falling through the big vat of popcorn and catch little pieces of it. We ended up with these strips of toffee at the bottom of the tray and wondering what to do with it.

“We started peeling it off and eating it. A couple of us had to put it away – it was way too addictive, and we were eating too much! It got forgotten about for a while, but it was really good, so we thought why not make it into a product? That’s how Toffee Popcorn Brittle came about.”

Toffee, popcorn, Daim bars… Seems the mission at Claire’s toffee factory is to magic up a very delicious taste of nostalgia. Strictly for us big kids, of course.

“We’re all happier in the kitchen when we’re making popcorn,” says Claire. “There’s something fun about anything to do with popcorn. It’s nostalgic and it brings out the inner kid! You’re brought right back to your childhood when you’re around it; when you hear it, when you smell it, when you eat it. Making toffee popcorn is like this marriage of two really nostalgic things!”

And how does Claire describe what this marriage tastes like?

“It’s a little bit salty, a little bit sweet, with a lovely buttery mouthfeel from the toffee and then finished with Achill Island Sea Salt.”

In other words, it tastes award-winning.

So how did it feel hearing Second Street Bakeshop called out six times at the October awards?

“Shocking! Just totally unexpected,” says Claire. “In the kitchen, we said we’d love to get ranked in confectionery, so maybe bronze. And in savoury, we’d love to also get a nod in that. But to win gold in confectionery really surprised us because it’s a very competitive category. Then to win gold in the popcorn category was beautiful.”

The accolades didn’t stop there.

“I’ve always seen other people win Best in Cork and thought that would be nice to win, but it’s so hard because the best in dairy, cheese, meat, etc, when there are so many amazing producers in Cork? I believe it’s the toughest county to win, and it’s a huge county. So, when we got that, I was shocked. And then Best in Munster? At that point I thought, all right - this is a bit much!”

But then came the announcement for Best New Product.

“That’s phenomenal because it’s best product of all the entries. That totally blew us away! And then: Best Artisan Producer. That was just the icing on the cake. I was speechless; I just couldn’t believe it.”

From 2022, when the business was a sole team of one Cork woman walking away with her first Blas awards, to today, four years later, coming home to her team of six with six awards (one for each team member?) is special, indeed.

“We had a team lunch yesterday with a little cake and downed tools to celebrate. Something like this gives new energy because it’s validation, belief and acknowledgement. It’s like a pat on the back to the team, to each person that has contributed. It’s like a nice warm glow and I think everybody’s happier. You get that little jump in your stride having this behind you.”

And with Christmas on the horizon, it couldn’t be a better time of year to get that boost.

“We’re already getting a lot more orders. We’re already exhausted, but it’s all good; I can’t complain! When I wake up and think I could do with another hour in bed, I just turn it around and say, I’m so privileged to work in the food industry, to follow my passion, and create a product that brings a smile to people’s faces.

“Making toffee is like a child going into a candy store. It’s so unusual as a profession. I’m so lucky that I know what my purpose is and I can follow it. Whether it’s hard or easy, I need to keep following it.”

I ask Claire what making Blas na hÉireann part of her journey as a food producer has done for her. Her response echoes what many other small producers up and down the country say.

“It’s huge what they do for us and the Irish food industry, and I think more should be made of them because what they’re doing for the industry is massive. It’s like a loudspeaker. A big thank you!”

• Second Street Bakeshop will be at both weekends of Ballymaloe Craft Fair (November 20-22 and 27-29) or visit www.secondstreetbakeshop.com