Frequently asked questions

Dark chocolate consists of cocoa mass, cocoa butter and sugar, in principle without milk. Our dark bars have 70, 80 or 100% cocoa. Milk chocolate has milk powder added for a softer, creamier taste. White chocolate contains no cocoa mass, only cocoa butter, milk and sugar: hence the light colour and the sweeter taste.

The percentage tells you how much of the bar comes from the cocoa bean (cocoa mass and cocoa butter). The rest is mostly sugar, and in milk chocolate milk as well. The higher the percentage, the more intense and less sweet the chocolate usually tastes.

Cocoa mass is the ground interior of the cocoa bean; cocoa butter is the pure, vegetable fat pressed out of it. Together they form the basis of every chocolate.

Dark chocolate with a high cocoa content contains less sugar than milk or white chocolate. Our dark bars range from 70 to 100% cocoa and are made with beans that our chocolatier roasts himself, for a deeper flavour. As with every treat: enjoy it, in moderation.

Yes, unfortunately. Chocolate contains theobromine, a substance that dogs and other pets cannot process well. The purer the chocolate, the higher the content and the more dangerous it is. So keep it out of their reach, however pleadingly they look. Has your pet eaten chocolate anyway? Call your vet straight away.

Belgian chocolate is known worldwide for its refined taste, velvety texture and craftsmanship. Typical are the traditional method, finely ground cocoa mass for a smooth structure and the use of pure cocoa butter, without other vegetable fats.

Not automatically, unfortunately. Some dark chocolate does contain a little milk constituents, and a lot of dark chocolate is made on lines where milk is also processed. So always check the label, or choose chocolate expressly marked as vegan, like our dark bars.

Yes, but only a little: a bar of dark chocolate usually contains much less caffeine than a cup of coffee. So a piece in the evening is perfectly fine.

Cocoa-based dark chocolate is naturally gluten-free, but products with wafer, biscuit or certain fillings do contain gluten. Always check the ingredient list; traces of gluten are possible in all of our products.

On every product page, under 'Ingredients & allergens', and on the packaging itself. Good to know: many of our pralines and truffles contain soy, nuts or milk, and all our products may contain traces of nuts, peanuts, milk, eggs, soy, sesame seeds, sulphites and gluten. In doubt about something? Email us before you order at contact@elisabeth.be, and we'll check with the maker.

Yes, and gladly. Our dark bars, the dark student mix and the fruit cubes are 100% vegan, as is a selection of other treats. You will find them all together in the 'Vegan' category. They are made in workshops where milk and nuts are also processed, though, so we never entirely rule out traces.

If a product contains nuts or gluten, that is always stated in the ingredient list on the product page. In all honesty, our artisans work with nuts, milk, gluten and soy in the same workshops, so we can never completely rule out traces, even if the ingredient itself wasn't added. If you have a serious allergy, do email us beforehand at contact@elisabeth.be, we're happy to help.

In a few, yes, and we're happy to tell you which. They are the chocolate pearls with whisky, Brhum or amaretto, the chocospoons with whisky or amaretto, the gift boxes with a bottle (Dada Chapel, Amaretto and Belgian Owl) and a few pralines with liqueur. With the chocospoons the alcohol melts into your warm milk, so you effectively drink a little as well. It's always clearly stated on the product page and the packaging. Most of our pralines, biscuits and sweets are alcohol-free.

The best artisans in Belgium, and that is exactly what we're proud of. Elisabeth seeks them out, tastes and selects: a chocolatier who chooses and roasts his own cocoa beans for our bars, baker Danny for the Zwevezele florentines, Joris for the sweets. With every product you read who makes it. Everything we sell, we first tasted and approved ourselves.

Closer to the bean than you think. Our bars are single origin: each bar is made with beans from one region, including India, Vietnam and the Caribbean, by a chocolatier who chooses and roasts them himself. Our artisans work with traceable cocoa and guarantee a fair income for the farmers, without child labour. And our packaging comes from local partners in Brussels, Ypres and Antwerp, fully recyclable.

Most are: pralines, truffles, bars and biscuits are vegetarian. Not vegetarian are the sweets with gelatine: cuberdons, meli-melos, sugar hearts with text, bears, raspberry hearts, marshmallows and melocakes. The melocakes contain pork gelatine; we'd rather tell you straight away.

No, we don't have sugar-free. What we do have: dark bars with 70, 80 and 100% cocoa. Because of that high cocoa content they naturally contain much less sugar, and the flavour only becomes more intense.

For fewer than 10 pieces, simply order in the webshop, with your VAT number on the invoice. From 10 pieces we'll gladly make a tailor-made proposal, with volume pricing and personalisation. Request it via the Businesses page; you'll hear from us within 2 working days.

Yes, and that makes the difference. We personalise with your logo, your colours or a card with your message, and on request put together an assortment of your own. Personalisation is possible from 10 pieces (a card with your logo) up to 100 pieces (your logo on the praline or the packaging), and requires 1 to 4 weeks of extra production time, depending on the option. You'll find all the options in our brochure.

Gifts without personalisation we deliver within 2 to 5 days. With personalisation, count on 1 to 4 weeks, depending on the option. Around Saint Nicholas and the end of the year it's busy, so please request your quote in good time.

Yes, to all countries our webshop delivers to. You give us an address list, we ship each parcel separately, with your card inside, and you receive a single invoice. Prefer everything at one address? That's possible too, neatly packed per person.

Simple. You receive an invoice with VAT, via Peppol too if you wish. You can pay on order or on invoice, within 7 days. A purchase order number or internal reference on the invoice? Mention it in your request and we'll put it on.

As soon as your order is in, we immediately send you a confirmation email with everything you ordered. If you don't see it within fifteen minutes, check your spam folder, as emails do go astray there now and then. Still nothing? Email us at contact@elisabeth.be and we will work it out together.

As soon as your order comes in, we start packing straight away. Changing or cancelling is no longer possible after that, so check everything carefully before you pay. Did something still go wrong? Email us right away at contact@elisabeth.be.

Whatever suits you best: Bancontact, Visa, Mastercard, PayPal, Apple Pay and Google Pay, and depending on your country others as well, such as iDEAL in the Netherlands. You see all the options at checkout, and everything is secure.

Absolutely. Enter your gift voucher code at checkout and the amount is deducted immediately. If anything is left over, it stays on the voucher for next time. Good to know: a gift voucher bought in our webshop can only be used online, not in our boutiques.

Yes, always. With every order you receive an invoice in your mailbox. If you are ordering for your company, enter your VAT number at checkout; then it will be correct on the invoice straight away.

Absolutely, that is what makes it a real gift. At checkout you write your message, and we put the card in the box. And don't worry: the invoice comes to you, never to the recipient.

Yes, please. At checkout, enter the recipient's address as the delivery address and your own address as the billing address. Add a card, so the lucky person knows straight away who it's from.

Online, every order goes to a single address. Want to treat several people at once, your team or your customers for example? Email us your list at contact@elisabeth.be. From 10 addresses we'll take care of it for you, with one invoice. For fewer addresses, simply place separate orders.

Then choose a mixed box, such as Emotions or Tentations: pralines from classic to surprising, so there's something for everyone. Still unsure? A digital gift voucher is a safe choice: the recipient picks what they like in our webshop.

Your gift voucher is valid immediately and stays valid for two years, so there's no rush. A gift voucher from our webshop is digital and can only be used online: enter the code at checkout. It is not valid in our boutiques.

In the run-up to every holiday we put the last order date at the top of the website. As a guideline: order at least 3 working days ahead for Belgium, 6 working days for the rest of Europe. Too late anyway? In our boutiques everything is ready until the last day, so do drop by.

No. The gift voucher is digital: we email it for free, to you or straight to the lucky recipient.

Chocolate from Elisabeth is a gift that never disappoints. Every box is assembled with as much care as it is packaged, in beautiful, trendy packaging that we deliberately have made by local partners. Add a personal card with your own message, and you have a gift that says just that little bit more than a standard box of pralines.

Gingerbread is a spice cake based on flour and honey, flavoured with cinnamon, clove and ginger: a traditional Belgian bake with a firm texture and a warm, spicy taste. With us you'll find gingerbread with candied fruit, with honey and fig, with apple and raisins, with ginger and orange, and a small version with pearl sugar.

Not all of them. Some of our gingerbreads contain honey. Honey contains no meat or dairy, but is an animal product, and most vegan definitions therefore don't consider it vegan. Our gingerbread with pearl sugar is vegan. You'll find all vegan products together in the 'Vegan' category.

Florentines are crisp biscuits of caramelised almonds, often with butter and partly or fully covered in chocolate. We have three: the Florentines, a caramelised almond biscuit with honey and butter, dipped in Belgian dark chocolate, with a firm bite; the Florentine tartlets, crisp outside and soft inside, filled with almond paste, candied orange and cherries, dipped in chocolate by hand; and the Zwevezele florentines by baker Danny.

A crisp biscuit with caramelised almonds, topped with a rich butter cream, dipped in white chocolate, artisanally made by baker Danny. Zwevezele, a village in West Flanders, is known for its florentines, hence the name.

Speculoos is a traditional spiced biscuit based on brown sugar and spices such as cinnamon, nutmeg and clove, with a characteristic crisp bite. In Belgium it belongs to the Saint Nicholas period.

A visit to Elisabeth is more than buying chocolate: it is a moment to lose yourself for a while. Our boutiques are designed so that you taste with your eyes before you even touch anything, and our team is happy to help with advice, whether it is a gift for someone else or simply a moment for yourself.

Because we've never stopped improving since 2001. From our very first boutique in the Boterstraat, right by the Grand-Place in Brussels, to today, with ten boutiques in Belgium and France, we keep looking for that little bit more: new flavours, more refined recipes, an ever better balanced range. We only offer the very best, and you can taste it: drop by one of our boutiques, let the smell of fresh chocolate tempt you, and discover for yourself why our customers keep coming back.

At Elisabeth, we are always seeking out the best artisans in Belgium and working closely with them. That way we bring you not only the finest chocolate, but also a varied range of other sweet treats, each made with the same craftsmanship. We never stand still: we regularly surprise you with new chocolate delights, presented in beautiful, trendy boxes. Only the best, approved by Elisabeth: everything we offer has first been tasted and approved by ourselves. We also consider the shopping experience at least as important as the product itself: every visit to an Elisabeth boutique should be a little moment of indulgence.

From the grandmother of founder Mireille, with love and pride. Elisabeth had a greengrocer's shop in Ostend: a strong, enterprising woman with a keen eye for quality, who inspired Mireille from an early age. That entrepreneurial spirit and that love of the best can still be found today in everything we select.

Strictly, and with great pleasure. We seek out artisans all over Belgium, taste their work and only include what surprises us ourselves. What we would not give to our own family, we do not sell. As a result the range changes regularly: new flavours are added, and what no longer convinces disappears. We never stand still.

Sign up for our newsletter. A few times a year you'll be the first to hear about new flavours and seasonal collections, receive an invitation to tastings in our boutiques and get a behind-the-scenes look at our makers. Follow us on Instagram and Facebook too, so you won't miss a thing.

Our packaging comes as much as possible from local partners: companies in Brussels, Ypres and Antwerp. Only when we cannot find a local solution for a particular package do we look to our neighbouring countries. For us this is not only a choice for the environment, but just as much a choice for the people behind it: with our local partners we build a genuine bond, and together we think about packaging that is not only beautiful, but also functional.

Fruit puree cooked down with sugar into a firm, jelly-like mass, cut into little cubes and rolled in sugar. With 60% real fruit pulp you taste the fruit in every cube: cherry, apricot, raspberry, blueberry, peach and pear, each with its own flavour.

Luxury fruit are artisanal fruit sweets that look like mini fruits and taste as if freshly picked, made with real fruit pulp and 100% vegan. Fruit slices in cherry, orange and lemon are made with agar-agar, a plant-based alternative to gelatine, and so are vegan too. The rest of the Fruit & chocolate range is not necessarily vegan; check the product page.

A praline is a little chocolate shell with a filling: ganache, praliné, caramel or fruit. A truffle is a small ball of ganache, fully coated in chocolate or cocoa powder. Both are made by hand, one by one, and both disappear from the box suspiciously fast.

Ganache is a creamy blend of chocolate and cream, sometimes with a little butter. Warm cream is poured over finely chopped chocolate and stirred until smooth. It is the base of many of our fillings.

Praliné is a finely ground paste of caramelised nuts, usually hazelnuts and almonds; the caramelisation gives it a deep, lightly roasted flavour. Gianduja is a creamy praliné of chocolate and finely ground hazelnuts, originally from Turin. Both are classic fillings in our pralines.

Marzipan is a soft, pliable paste made from ground almonds and sugar. You find it as a filling in certain pralines, or finely shaped as a treat in its own right.

Get to know yourself a little. Do you love adventurous flavours such as basil, rose or cardamom? Or do you prefer classics like praliné, gianduja and caramel? Can't decide, or love both worlds? A mixed box combines the best of both. And in the boutique, you can simply taste.

A classic Belgian sweet from the coast: a soft, salted caramel of butter and sugar. According to tradition, babelutten were the simple home-made sweet of the coastal residents in the 19th century. The recipe from Ostend was taken to Veurne in 1922, where the inhabitants earned the nickname 'babelutten lickers'.

A classic Belgian sweet: cone-shaped, with a thin, crisp sugar crust and a soft, syrupy gum filling. The classic flavour is raspberry; other variants exist by now. Because of their cone shape they are also called 'noses' in Ghent. Our cuberdons contain gelatine.

The name refers to the marshmallow plant, a plant from marshland ('marsh mallow') from which the ancient Egyptians already made sweets. Our marshmallows are made of sugar, water, air and gelatine as a whipping agent: the same airy texture, made in a modern way. In everyday speech they are also called 'nunnebillen' or 'spek'. The traditional preparation of this pink-and-white sweet is on the Flemish inventory of intangible heritage.

A creamy, soft sweet of sugar, butter and milk or cream, boiled down and whipped into a dense, melting texture. At Elisabeth you'll find bags with only vanilla fudge, and bags with four flavours: vanilla, toffee, chocolate and gingerbread spices.

A bar is a flat, divided slab that you easily break into pieces. Chocolate chunks are loosely moulded, irregular pieces, ideal for snacking on as they are. At Elisabeth you'll find chunks with puffed rice and with caramelised hazelnuts, each in white, milk and dark, and chunks with almonds in milk and dark.

Our bars are all dark, with 70, 80 or 100% cocoa. Milk chocolate you'll find in our chunks and pralines, among others. The dark bars contain no animal ingredients and are vegan. They are made in a workshop where nuts and milk are also processed, though, and may therefore contain traces of nuts, peanuts, milk, eggs, soy, sesame seeds, sulphites and gluten.

Our chocolatier chooses the cocoa beans himself and roasts them himself too. Our bars are single origin: each bar comes from one region. So you have 70% from the Caribbean, 70% from India, 80% from Vietnam and 100% from India, each with the character of its region.

We love the sun, our chocolate a little less. Above 25 °C we wait a while before shipping, which prevents melted surprises along the way. As soon as it cools down, your order goes out after all; we keep you informed by email. Biscuits, speculoos and sweets can handle a bit of sun, so we ship those all year round.

Treat it like a good wine: cool, dry and dark, between 15 and 20 °C, in the closed box. Large temperature swings affect flavour and texture. The fridge or freezer is not a good idea: chocolate absorbs moisture and odours there, and you can taste it.

That depends on what you chose. Pralines and truffles with a fresh filling, such as cream, are at their best within a month of purchase, although in practice they rarely last that long. Chocolate chunks, orangettes and bars contain no cream or butter and keep well for months. The best-before date is always on the packaging.

Yes, absolutely. That haze is called fat bloom: it occurs when chocolate has been stored too warm or has experienced large temperature swings, causing the cocoa butter to rise to the surface. Your chocolate is perfectly safe and tastes just as good, only the shine is gone. It is even a good sign: chocolate with pure cocoa butter is more sensitive to it than chocolate with vegetable fats.

In Belgium you pay €7.90 shipping, and from €60 we ship for free. To the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Germany and France we ship for free from €100. For the other countries a fixed rate per country applies: you see it at checkout, before you pay.

Faster than you think. We ship with bpost: in Belgium your parcel is at your door after 1 to 3 working days, elsewhere in Europe after 3 to 5 working days. In the busy weeks before Saint Nicholas, Christmas and Easter we put the last order date at the top of the website, so you can be sure to be on time.

To all countries of the European Union, except Cyprus, Malta and Greece. Special rules apply to some islands; you see them at checkout. Outside the European Union we don't ship for the time being. If you come from further away, we'd be glad to welcome you in one of our boutiques.

We can't guarantee an exact day: once your parcel is with bpost, the pace is partly in their hands. But if you have a preferred date, mention it in the comments field at checkout. We'll schedule the shipment around it as well as we can.

Yes. As soon as your parcel leaves, you will receive an email with a bpost tracking link. That way you know exactly where it is, and when to open the door.

No, we always ship online orders. In our boutiques you can buy and take away straight away.

No panic. The carrier leaves a notice and takes your parcel to a pick-up point nearby; the tracking link shows you where. Do collect it quickly, though: chocolate doesn't like waiting in a warm depot.

How annoying! We'll gladly sort that out for you. Email us within 48 hours of delivery at contact@elisabeth.be, with your order number and a photo of the parcel and the damaged products. We'll then send you a new product or refund you, whichever you prefer.

Chocolate is perishable, which is why we don't take it back. If something is wrong with your order, we'll gladly sort it out: email us within 48 hours of delivery at contact@elisabeth.be, with your order number and a photo. For a quality problem, you choose: a new product or your money back.

At ten places by now: six boutiques in Brussels (including the Boterstraat, the Grasmarkt and the Louizalaan), one in Antwerp, two in Bruges and one in Paris (Le Marais). You'll find addresses and current opening hours per boutique on our Boutiques page. Do drop by, tasting is allowed.

Yes, both, and that is a bit of our pride. Our team is happy to let you taste before you choose. Pralines and most sweets are bought by weight, so you put together exactly what you want: a single praline or a full box. That is why the range in the boutique is also wider than online.

We do not organise regular workshops at the moment. We do regularly invite customers to come and taste new flavours in our boutiques, and that is always a little celebration. Want to be there? Sign up for our newsletter and you will be the first to hear.

Yes, and that's what we were really made for. Belgium has so many chocolatiers that it's quite hard to know where to find the best; Elisabeth bundles them for you in one place: pralines, speculoos, cuberdons, melocakes. All in sturdy, beautiful packaging that can handle a journey, and our team will gladly tell you what travels best. Our boutiques are right by the Grand-Place, the Manneken Pis, the Markt in Bruges and the Meir in Antwerp.