Her journey to chocolate fame started with an oven.

Bayla Sussman, formerly an actress, once played the witch in the childhood classic Hansel and Gretel for a children's theater in Illinois.

But when it was time for the children to kill the witch by pushing her into an oven, Sussman got stuck in the kitchen contraption and was caught in the line of a fire extinguisher used for the smoke effect a little too long. Soon after, she found herself recuperating from severe respiratory troubles at home and had extra time on her hands to bake.

During her recovery, Sussman developed new oven skills, baking cakes and cookies for her friends and family.

She and her husband moved to Roanoke in 1996, and her baking took a different turn. Sussman's now making quiet waves in the local gourmet chocolate industry. You'll find many of her packaged sweets at some local stores and festivals.

The 59-year-old from Skokie, Ill., may have chosen a decent time to get started. Large chocolate makers are recognizing consumers' taste for more decadent chocolate, instead of the traditional Snickers candy bars and bags of M&Ms.

Mass chocolate companies, including Hershey and Russell Stover, recently have dipped into the flavor for gourmet candy. Russell Stover created the Private Reserve line, which includes chocolates packaged in red boxes and tied with gold ribbon bows. Last year, Hershey bought two premium chocolate companies through its new upper-scale chocolate division, Artisan Confection. And closer to home, a new store is joining the lineup of Roanoke-area offerings for chocoholics.

A 3-team group of owners will open ChocolatePaper by the end of this month at the Shops at Springwood Park in Roanoke County, near the intersection of Electric Road and Brambleton Avenue. The shop sells upscale gourmet chocolates of different varieties, such as dark, milk and white chocolates from around the world. It also will carry greeting cards and special occasion gifts.

All of this chocolate activity shows that there may be a market nationally for high-end chocolate, similar to the way Starbucks discovered the country's taste for gourmet coffee.

Sales of premium chocolates accounted for about $1.5 million in 2004, according to the latest report on the industry by Mintel International Group, a market research firm. It does not include sales at Wal-Mart.

And Mintel predicts continued growth in these sales, fueled by the health benefits that some scientists have discovered in dark chocolate. Chocolate also ranks second to coffee and tea as the most popular item in the specialty food category, the firm reports.

Getting started

Back at Sussman's kitchen in Southwest Roanoke County where her operation is based, she spends her days melting chocolate in a large white melter and blending homemade marshmallow for a chocolate and caramel creation sandwiched with graham crackers. They're called s'mores.

After Sussman and her husband, Michael Bonney, moved to Roanoke, Sussman made truffles for an open house event hosted by Gwenda Kellett, her friend and the owner of Plantagenet Rose, a gift and furnishings shop on Grandin Road in Roanoke.

Afterward, Kellett's customers kept asking for the chocolates' return.

"You're going to have to sell these," Kellett told Sussman.

But Sussman wasn't so sure. She didn't like the idea of making a business out of something that she found fun.

"My thought was 'I'll go into business and in six months, I will have failed and I will have tried it and it didn't work,' " she said.

But it did work. And almost three years ago, Sussman started to build a customer base. She gave her sweet creations a name -- Baylee's Best.

"Ignorance is a real strength sometimes," she said of her early expectations.

Montano's International Gourmet Restaurant in Roanoke, which sells some candy in its shop, was her first client.

Now, you can find some of Sussman's regular offerings at Back Creek Sweets & Treats in Roanoke County and at the Daily Grind, a coffee shop in Salem. Kellett continues to sell Sussman's treats for open houses and for holidays such as Christmas and Mother's Day.

Sussman is also talking to other local businesses about future deals. Amrhein's, a local bridal and jewelry business, has served her truffles for open houses, and Sussman is talking with them about serving more chocolates in the store.

Becky Schuck, who owns Back Creek Sweets & Treats, a gift, food and candy store, orders chocolates from Sussman about every two weeks, sometimes more often, to sell in her shop. She's been placing orders for the last year and a half.

The truffles, which sell for $1.09 each at the shop, are popular with the pharmaceutical drug reps who come there. They'll order at least 100 at a time to give to doctors, Schuck said.

She also sells Sussman's pretzel pops -- which are large pretzel sticks wrapped in caramel and dipped in chocolate -- and her s'mores candies.

Sussman calls the truffles, which are sweet round balls that include a flavored filling and a hard outer layer, her specialty. It costs her about 60 cents to make each truffle, not counting her basic expenses, such as insurance, electricity and taxes. Sussman has a business license to make the chocolate in her home.

She continues to develop taste categories for her chocolates.

"I like to make mine so you bite into it, and it melts a little more quickly in your mouth," she said, describing her truffle technique.

Her truffles are lighter than the traditional kind, with more air inside.

And Sussman's experimenting with new candies and flavors, including a Key lime truffle.

Planning for the future

She admits that this is the first time in her life that she hasn't planned her destiny.

She'd like to move the business out of her home sooner than later to a larger facility where she can expand her chocolate-making capabilities, she said. But financing a move like that could be tricky. She said she has yet to turn a profit in her business.

Sussman puts the money that she earns back into her business, buying the necessary equipment to make the candy and ordering the chocolate, which she receives in hard bar form from Atlanta from a company called Barry Callebaut. Some of it is imported from Belgium, Toronto and Vermont.

"For the first time, I've decided to take things as they come and not plan too much," Sussman said.

She's had some business flops along the way. Like the year that she and her husband set up a booth at downtown Roanoke's Dickens of a Christmas celebration. It was a frigid evening, and not one person bought her chocolate.

"We froze and lost money," Sussman said, matter-of-factly.

And like some area chocolate makers before her, Sussman's learning that it takes some time to land successfully in this kind of business. She is one of a few chocolate makers in Southwest Virginia. Others are the Cocoa Mill in Lexington and Genie Ranck's business, Chocolate Spike, in Blacksburg and Christiansburg, two of the area's well-known establishments.

Ranck, who operates two retail chocolate shops and a production facility, sold her chocolate at some local farmers markets for six years before she stepped out with her own shop two years ago.

She, too, specializes in making truffles, and she sells other chocolate candy.

Though Ranck has had a successful run, she did not strike it rich when she opened a chocolate cafe in Blacksburg last August. These kinds of cafes, which feature chocolate drinks and other cocoa gourmet candies and pastries in a sit-down, leisurely environment, have opened with success in Chicago and in other large cities.

But the concept didn't fly in downtown Blacksburg because of low sales volume and foot traffic. Ranck closed the cafe last December.

Despite Ranck's situation, Sussman has a long-term goal of opening a chocolate cafe in the Roanoke Valley. She believes there is a market in Roanoke for this type of cafe because there is a larger population base.

Sussman said she'd consider opening the cafe alongside a chocolate candy retail shop in the south or southwest Roanoke area.

Although her acting career now seems long gone, Sussman's wowing some audiences, even with those who claim to be fussy about chocolate.

They're people like Kellett of Plantagenet Rose, who is European and used to tasting some of the best chocolate in the world. But she said Sussman's truffles satisfy her.

"It has the snap, and then the softness to it," Kellett said. "Chocolate's an experience. It's not just a bag of chips."

To order Sussman's chocolates, e-mail her at bayla@bayleesbest.com or call (800) 706-8016.