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About Us

Take a look at our bakery and discover how we work

We Are Wildflower Confections

You can find us in the little town of Darby in the beautiful Bitterroot Valley of Western Montana. We’re located directly under the most amazing mountain vista you can find. Our mission is a simple one:  to create delicious, high quality artisan chocolates and baked goods with the best ingredients we know of, to give you the best service, and for you to be glad you stopped by.

We make our artisan chocolates, baked goods, and beverages right here, by hand, with natural, organic and non-GMO ingredients. As for corn syrup, paraffin, fillers, or inverted sugars, you won’t find any of that around here. Just pure and simple, best ingredients we know of, and friendly people.

We’re a small-town business with a nation-wide (and beyond) reach, but we treat all our customers like neighbors. Whether you are looking for a thoughtful gift, to make a celebration even more special, or to treat yourself…Wildflower Confections is here for you.

 

Chocolates

We offer a wide variety of hand-made artisan chocolates in a multitude of flavors, including Espresso Truffles made using espresso from our local friends at Big Creek Coffee Roasters, Stout Beer Truffles featuring a hearty stout from Bandit Brewing Co. right here in Darby, and our amazing Wine Truffles which showcase the Roaring Lion Red (Dark Chocolate) and Chardonnay (Milk Chocolate) of our local winery, Blodgett Canyon Cellars, plus our Montana Fruit Chocolate Truffles featuring Flathead Lake Cherries and wild Montana Huckleberries. Our traditional Hand-Dipped Chocolate Truffles are available in eleven classic flavors such as Butter Pecan, Cinnamon, Hazelnut, Lemon, Pomegranate, and Raspberry. We also offer our extensive list of Seasonal Chocolates to help you celebrate the holidays in sweet style.

Let’s not forget our best selling English Toffee! We have heard many times that this is the “best I’ve ever had.” Our English Toffee is delicate and crunchy, and like all we do, made with the best pure and simple ingredients we know of. This buttery treat is made with almonds, organic brown sugar, butter, and sea salt, and is topped with Belgian chocolate and pecans. Our toffee has a lovely, crisp texture, but it is not a danger to your dental work.

 

Bakery & Beverages

If you are looking for “Mom’s Kitchen” kind of treat, we’ve got you covered here, too. Our bakers create a variety of made from scratch baked goods. Bulk processed flour? No way. Our go-to flour is Wheat Montana Flour. Our Huckleberry Cinnamon Rolls are a local favorite (we ship these, too!). We roll them with our very own English Toffee, finely crushed and blended with Irish butter, a generous sprinkling of Saigon cinnamon, and wild huckleberries, then top them with our Huckleberry Cream Cheese icing.

Our baked goods provided the inspiration for espresso-based beverages, and for these, too, we aim for the best! We are pleased to serve Big Creek Coffee Roasters’ Rise blend. Our mochas, lattes, and hot chocolates are, like all we do, created in our own unique way, using pure and simple, best ingredients we know of, and free from overly sweet or corn syrup laden flavor syrups.

How about something a little more substantial? We make our Stuffed Sourdough Rolls with our own artisan bread filled with various meat and cheese mixtures or our vegetarian Mushroom Duxelles. Our Flower Power Energy Bars are made with organic ingredients such as Maca Powder, peanut butter or a no-peanut nut blend, dried berries, and sunflower seeds to give you that energy boost you are looking for. We avoid the sweet syrupy goo that is in most energy bars. We make them in two varieties, including a no gluten, lactose-free, vegan alternative.

 

Our Story

Wildflower Confections founder and owner, Barbara, has enjoyed reading recipes, cooking and baking since her years were in the single digits…with a focus on sweet treats!  She grew up across the street from a grandfatherly sugar beet farmer in Corvallis, MT, and she had the sweet honor, she thought, of being given permission to occasionally pull a beet from the soil, take it home like treasure found, wash it, and experiment. Hmmm…unsatisfactory results, but oh, so much fun. She wanted to make chocolates like those she had seen in the cookbook her beloved grandmother had given her mother. Her grandmother had been a confectioner in Southern California where she owned and operated Elizabeth’s Pastries & Candies in Monrovia. It’s in the heart and in the genes!

Flash forward to 2008. A little chocolate each day had been part of Barbara’s life for years, and hours at the computer job hunting after the economic crash created the “need” for a chocolate break…and then an “aha” moment…the internet. With the world at her fingertips she thought she could learn what she had lacked as a child. And she did. She learned how to temper chocolate, and much more. Barbara shared her creative results with some Napa Valley foodie friends at a dinner…and you know what comes next…the encouraging response made her hopeful that she could turn her hobby into a business. She wanted some crunch amid the creaminess of the chocolates, so she added the “Best I’ve Ever Had” English Toffee that is based on her grandmother’s recipe.  Small business entrepreneurship was ingrained from growing up in rural Montana as part of a family-run business, so Barbara made the leap, started her business, and she received a friendly, approving, and confidence-building welcome in the Napa Valley.

Barbara lay this creative endeavor down for a nap when other enticing opportunities in the dynamic Napa Valley hospitality industry beckoned. After working with numerous top-notch professionals in Napa and Sonoma and growing in the knowledge of and appreciation for Wine Country epicurean delights, sweet dreams led to the reawakening of her creations under the name of Wildflower Confections.  At home again in the Bitterroot Valley, Barbara, now joined by her  husband Champ, and with the help of the amazing Wildflower Confections team, has grown the business to offer our quality products and friendly service not only to the locals, but also to wonderful customers all across the country. We are enjoying filling in our U.S. map with pins designating shipping destinations!

Barbara’s deep respect for quality local artistry led to much more than Wildflower Confections’ wares. Wildflower Boutique is our Made in Montana gift shop, and it has quickly become an integral part of the business. Barbara thinks that the broad and beautiful Montana vistas inspire dreams of “what if” resulting in the best artistic creations. Come look and see! We showcase a wide variety in our little shop, from paintings, stoneware, and apparel, to skin care and specialty food items.

If you are ever fortunate enough to find yourself under our beautiful mountains, stop in and see us at 309 N Main St in Darby, Montana. We have a friendly smile, a hot coffee, and a sample or two waiting for you.  Whether you are at our counter or visiting us online from home…

Taste, enjoy, and sweeten your day!

2008

First Inspiration

Barbara's "need for chocolate" while job hunting online resulted in the first chocolate truffles created. Barbara's daughter and two of her friends cooked a theme dinner for their parents every few months, and this month it was Italian hosted at Barbara's house. The scratch-made raviolis took longer than the girls thought they would, and they were left without time to make dessert. Wala! The newly created truffles were available! All the parents enjoyed the chocolates. One of the dads, who Barbara had known to be a foodie, raved about them. A seed (a new business chocolate seed) was planted in Barbara's mind.

2008 - 2009

Napa Valley Sales

Barbara worked her way through the business startup legal hoops, located a commercial kitchen to rent, and started out selling at the two Napa, CA Farmers Markets and at the Chefs Market. She was pleasantly surprised when the first winery chef placed a special order for an upcoming winery dinner. Over the next year, Barbara rented three different commercial kitchens which were shared with various Napa Valley Chefs and specialty food entrepreneurs. She sold to a variety of clients, including a local dentist who gave her products as customer appreciation gifts, a mortgage company who gifted her chocolates to all customers who refinanced or purchased homes, winery chefs, a nearby municipality whose city employees sold her products for a fundraiser, and school fundraisers.

2010-2012

Expanded Napa Valley Experiences

Barbara's confectionery business was set aside for a few years during which valuable experiences, both in business management and in epicurean quality, were had. Barbara hired and trained the service staff for the new Westin Verasa, Napa. She then joined the front of house staff at Bardessono in Yountville, followed by being the sole member of the Destination Services Department at Silverado Resort. This opened the door to becoming a work-from-home sales manager with the Wine & Dine Events team. And hallelujah! Her wonderful employer allowed Barbara to move home to Montana while keeping her work-from-home job. She moved home, departing Napa on January 1st, 2013, and started preparing to open the brick and mortar Wildflower Confections & Boutique. She worked both jobs, traveling to Napa for a week each month for work for a couple of years, slowly reducing her hours with Wine & Dine Events, until her last day in 2015. Barbara is forever grateful to her previous employer for helping make it possible for her to move home and to start this sweet adventure.

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