Holidays with McFaddy: Delicious toffee with an inspirational story

By Amanda Cooper | December 19, 2016

McFaddy Candy Co. makes delicious toffee comprised of all-natural flavors, gourmet chocolate, and fresh butter. Katherine Ellis created the company with just her mother’s toffee recipe, strength, and a road to recovery. Here is her story.

It all started when as a teenager, Katherine Ellis learned she had scoliosis, a condition where the spine is curved. The condition, which started out as a minor issue, turned serious when she learned that at 32 year’s old, she had developed painful curves in her back.

To make matters worse, just one month before her surgery, she received a shaky phone call from her then-boyfriend. Expressing his fears of her condition, and not wanting to take on the challenge of helping Katherine get better, he decided to end the relationship. How much worse could things get?

Finally the day she had been waiting for arrived…her surgery. The surgery was intense—two different days, three incisions, seventeen hours total.  She was released from the hospital after eleven days, and had her mom by her side for a couple more. After her mother’s departure, she quickly realized she needed to be alone to regain her life.

“Even in my susceptible state, the vulnerable condition of my body, I had to be alone to receive the strength that was coming.  This was an inner-strength, and like all things unseen, the most beautiful of all.”

Through her recovery, Katherine had plenty of time to think about what she was going to do next. With unlimited possibilities, one idea continued to creep back into her head….toffee.

Unsure of why toffee came to mind when deciding what to do with her life, she decided to think the idea through.

“Where the heck did that come from?  I’m not a baker!  But my mom is, and she has been told for years she has the best darn toffee in town.  Well, if I was going to make toffee, it had to be unique.  How in the world do you do that?”

She set out to answer the question of how to make unique, delicious toffee that would be able to grow into a successful business.

“I thought of all my favorite things: strawberry cake made with real strawberries, strawberry chocolates from See’s Candies, strawberry tarts…” you catch her drift.

The question was, how could she make strawberry chocolate with real strawberries, and somehow make it into toffee?

“One marble slab and days of online research later, I found a way, and Strawberry Kiss became my first flavor!’ And then she thought, “If I could do that, what else?”

As she started her newly formed business idea, Katherine began to build herself back up. As her business grew, she grew. As she quickly learned to think like a business woman, she unexpectedly learned a lot about herself.

Continuing with her journey, Katherine knew she wanted to make a toffee with salted chocolate, but not your run-of-the-mill salted chocolate that every toffee company has. She set out to satisfy her love of salty flavors by learning what other salts can be included in her toffee.

“I looked, and I looked.  I found salts I had heard of—Himalayan, and ones I never knew existed—red Alaea Hawaiian salt.  I bought the best chocolate, and I set up a Willie Wonka factory in my very own kitchen.”

She was hooked.

She began growing her hobby and making connections. Katherine called up a friend who is in the catering business and told her about her experiment. He tried the chocolate, and immediately offered to do a party with him within a month. The catch?  It was for four hundred people, and she was still recovering from her surgery.

She bravely accepted the offer and set out to hire someone to help her. Since she officially had an employee, she needed a name for her new company.

She began thinking of clever names such as “Mom & Mia,” though that sounded more like a pasta company. She listened to her inner voice once again and came up with McFaddy.

“Chaddy McFaddy was what I called my dear friend who had passed away.  Chad McDonald was a great man whose life was cut short, and what better way to honor him than with a happy candy business?”

So that was it, Katherine was official. She had the name, she had her first party, and off she went.

“I made a table with five different flavors, and people lit up when they saw it.” The guests were in love with McFaddy Candy Co.

From there, Katherine began doing events regularly. She reached out to local markets and shops and pushed herself to take risks.

“And I haven’t stopped since.”

Facing a newly growing business while still recovering from a major, life-changing surgery, Katherine knew she had to pace herself if she wanted to continue down this exciting path.

“As all entrepreneurs know, running your own business oftentimes means running on nothing, and eventually I had to slow down or I would be in bad shape physically again.  So I slowed down to speed up, and now we are growing and expanding in very exciting ways.”

From facing a frightening condition, to getting dumped by her then-boyfriend, to having the surgery that would change her life, Katherine came out on top of it all.

Though times were difficult, Katherine was determined to stay positive. Starting with creativity, sheer drive and her mom’s toffee recipe, she found the strength to rebuild her life. She followed her courage and her inner voice which led to a successful, delicious growing toffee business.

Join Katherine for Holidays with McFaddy and explore her homemade, all natural, holiday toffee flavors. Ranging from Pecan Pie to Pumpkin Spice, and back to her first flavor, Strawberry Kiss. McFaddy Candy Co. is the gift the whole family will love.

Bring the family together with an inspiring story and delicious toffee. You can find McFaddy online at www.mcfaddycandy.com, and in stores in the Los Angeles area.