YOU wouldn't encourage an alcoholic to run a pub, so is it such a great idea for a chocoholic to manufacture her own sweet treats?

"I imagine it's like working in a cake shop," said Linda Barrie, mulling over the question in her first-floor kitchen overlooking Naburn marina.

"You start off thinking you are in seventh heaven, but then the novelty starts to wear off. I just keep telling myself 'a moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips'. That does the trick."

Her culinary creation, which she has christened Choc-Affair, is ingeniously simple. It's a large pyramidal chunk of natural Fairtrade chocolate with a sprinkling of raw cane sugar moulded on to a stick. When it's swirled into a piping hot mug of milk, it becomes a velvety hot chocolate drink. (I can confirm it's also yummy when nibbled straight from the stick - the things I do for you.) The idea came from an unusual source - her daughters' allergies.

"I always struggled to find treats for them," said Linda. "I could never find nice chocolate bars or Easter eggs with novelties in. I couldn't even get chocolate decorations for the Christmas tree."

After almost a year of research, sourcing moulds in Italy, honing the design of the packaging and overseeing numerous experiments to get just the right bitter-sweet taste, Choc-Affair is now in production.

Linda works with 5kg bars of dark Fairtrade chocolate. She tempers it - a heating and cooling process that gives the chocolate a distinctive shine and renders it pliable enough to mould.

She then sprinkles each chunk by hand with sugar and inserts a stick. And that is pretty much it.

Choc-Affair is a simple product but, at £1.75 a chunk, it is aimed at the luxury end of the market.

"I can't see it being sold in supermarkets," said Linda. "It's just not the sort of thing you would chuck in your trolley with your tins and vegetables. It's more of a weekend treat."

She imagines her customers will be 30-something women looking for a taste of luxury. "I don't think men get chocolate," she said. "They just don't get the same buzz out of it."

But what about her girls, Mariah, ten, and seven-year-old Ella - do they get a buzz out of their mum's new creation?

"They love it," said Linda. "They have it with soya milk, but otherwise it's a treat just like their friends enjoy.

Choc-Affair is available now in Henshelwoods Deli in Newgate, York. You can also buy online at www.choc-affair.com (£1.75 each, plus p&p).

If you're really desperate, phone Chocoholics Anonymous and request an emergency Kit Kat to keep you going (I've got it on speed dial).

Updated: 10:44 Tuesday, February 21, 2006