ISLAND LIFE

As casual stallholders at Salamanca Market, Jacquelyn and Marcelo Atique are always happy when they secure a spot to sell their chocolates at the popular weekly event – even if it means having to snuggle their daughter Ellie non-stop when it’s cold.

“She’s a market baby,” says Jacquelyn, who is shown here with Marcelo and Ellie at The Little Brazilian Bakery stall at Salamanca, holding a selection of their Brazilian brigadeiros.

“Ellie was about nine months old when we started at the market. She’s been through warm and cold weather on market days. All the stallholders get a turn (of holding her).”

The couple, both environmental scientists, married last weekend at South Arm. They’ve been making and selling brigadeiros – “a marriage between a chocolate truffle and a caramel” – for more than 12 months. “It’s soft and chewy,” Jacquelyn says. Marcelo, originally from Brazil, made them for Jacquelyn not long after they met while working in Queensland. Believing the chocolates would sell well, Jacquelyn suggested they test the waters in February last year at the South Arm market, where they sold out quickly.

The range – all made with a coverture Belgian chocolate – now includes traditional brigadeiros and ones made with Australian flavours such as lemon myrtle. Their Easter chocolates include half a chocolate egg shell filled with the brigadeiro mixture.

“A lot of Brazilians are drawn to the stall,” Jacquelyn says. “Brigadeiros are so familiar to them. They say, ‘I can’t believe there are brigadeiros in Tasmania’.”

To order brigadeiros, search for The Little Brazilian Bakery on Facebook or Instagram, or visit the stall at Salamanca (position varies)