Detours: A Taste of Heaven
There’s something ironic about nuns making sinfully good candies.
There’s something ironic about nuns making sinfully good candies. But that’s just what the Trappistine sisters at Mount Saint Mary’s Abbey in Wrentham have been doing for 50 years.
To understand how the nuns got into the candy business, you have to trace the roots of their order. Trappistine life is centered on prayer, scripture and manual labor. Their simple, monastic lifestyle calls for them to support themselves through their handiwork. That’s why the nuns began Trappistine Quality Candy in 1956. The operation started small; from a monastery workroom, the nuns churned out caramels and fudge. As time went on, local candy makers helped create new recipes and now customers can choose from chocolate and penuche fudge, two varieties of almond bark, and the popular Butter Nut Munch, an almond butter crunch coated with milk chocolate and roasted hazelnuts.
The sisters originally sold only to wholesale distributors and sweet seekers who knocked on the abbey door. But as demand for the fine confections grew, the savvy sisters knew it was time to expand into a retail business. Today, you can follow your sweet tooth to the abbey’s gift shop. While you’re there, you also can visit the sisters’ monastic church and retreat house.
Though the order embraces technology to expand its business, the philosophy behind Trappistine Quality Candy remains the same: a commitment to monastic life. In the sisters’ own words, “When we work, we make candy in prayer and with love.”
>> For more information, call 866-549-8929 or visit www.trappestinecandy.com.