The Sweet Story of a Legal Eagle Turned Chocolate Maven

Walk into chocolate maker Maggie Callahan's three-day-old Austin, Texas, shop—or take a look at her gorgeous sweets—and you’d think she had been doing this her whole life. Maybe she was the daughter of a chocolatier, and tempering, molding, and painting these miniature creations so expertly is just in her blood. In fact, Callahan was a lawyer for the past decade. After college in Virginia and law school in Boston (a little place called Harvard), she practiced in both New York and Washington, D.C., before settling in Austin with her husband. But “separate from being really good at my job, I didn’t have that interest in my job,” she confessed of the law.

She had to make a change. “Ultimately, you have one shot, you might as well do it right,” she said.

Despite her hectic schedule following the opening of her new shop, Callahan was able to jump on the phone and talk to Yahoo Food about her dramatic career change, how she discovered chocolate, and what inspires her whimsical, edible works of art at Maggie Louise Confections. And click here to see just how distinctive they are.

Callahan’s “orange crush” box contains dark chocolate honeycombs.

On Why She Made the Move

“I liked practicing law, and I was really good lawyer. I went to Harvard, I worked for a big law firm, I worked on big deals, but I didn’t have any passion for it.” Her litmus test? “Let me put it this way: If I wasn’t at work, I never once wanted to read about the topic of my profession.”

On How She Settled on Chocolate

“Finding your passion is that hard part, pursuing it the easy part.” To find it, she explored. “I volunteered at museums—I thought I might be be an art appraiser—and I did some interior design, some cooking… When we were in Denver, I was selling antique glassware.” Then, she moved to Austin for her husband’s job. “I had an 8-month-old daughter, so I took the summer off to be with my her, and I went to [legendary culinary program] Le Cordon Bleu. I fell in love with chocolate. It’s such a great medium, because it’s not only delicious, but also beautiful. I had had no idea! [Culinary school] was eye opening and fascinating; I loved chocolate and that was it.”

Customers can spell whatever they want with Callahan’s dark chocolate letters.

On Dedication

“[Before opening the store, which has a full kitchen as well as the retail space], we rented half of a commercial kitchen by the hour. But the thing about Austin is we have a lot of food trucks, and most of those trucks cook in that type of kitchen. The only hours I could find still available were in the middle of the night, so I worked from 10 p.m. to 4 a.m. In a way, it was great, because it gave me time to work on the business side of things during the day.” How does this compare to her previous profession? “I work more hours than I did when I was a lawyer. The nights are just as late, but I love it. That’s what I was looking for the whole time.”

White chocolate lipsticks at Maggie Louise Confections.

On What Was Missing

“Everything I saw in the marketplace was masculine and heavy: a lot of brown and orange and heavy gold. Chocolate is serious in that it’s a wonderful product and it comes from hard work, but it’s also a fun treat. There’s no reason it can’t be feminine and colorful and embellished.”

One of Callahan’s Valentine’s Day-exclusives.

On Finding Inspiration

“I don’t look at other people’s work in the chocolate world for inspiration. I look at old interior design books—I might see a wallpaper that gets the wheels turning—and films.” For example, “I had seen Cleopatra with Elizabeth Taylor—that blue eye shadow!—and I have great nail polish called ‘Cleopatra in New York’… That’s what inspired the Egyptian box, which has camels and pharaohs and pyramids and lots of blue and gold.”

Callahan’s Cleopatra-inspired chocolates.

On Letting Her Quirk Flag Fly

“Most of my molds come from Europe, because I like whimsical stuff and their molds can be kind of kooky. It might be a bunny on a motorcycle smoking a cigar, but with the right color palette, that bunny can look really chic!”

The time for chocolate is now:

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