Joyce Gepitulan has a job many would envy: She develops new products for Hawaiian Host and every day is surrounded by the alluring scents of roasting macadamia nuts and melting chocolate.

Asked if she ever gets tired of chocolate, she looks puzzled. "Noooooooo," she says with a question in her tone — as if to wonder, "How could you ever get tired of chocolate?"

Gepitulan, a youthful-looking 33, giggles when she reveals that she eats her breakfast oatmeal at work each morning so she can put a little chopped chocolate into it.

Though she isn't a confectioner (a candy chef), Gepitulan, who has been with Hawaiian Host for 10 years, does have a bachelor of science degree in food science and nutrition from the University of Hawai'i, and it is this understanding of the chemical processes that accompany candy-making that allow her to "play safely" with recipes.

The product development department's goal is to come up with at least two new potential products a quarter, which translates to a lot of thinking, dreaming, tasting and testing, plus problem-solving technical issues.

Sara Muraoka, Hawaiian Host director of marketing, said the company closely tracks trends — changes in candy lovers' tastes, as well as product ideas and packaging.

The trends now: High cocoa-content chocolate, more dark chocolate (once 10 percent of the American market; now as high as 40 percent), single-origin chocolates (like estate wines, traceable to a single grower or region and therefore exhibiting particular characteristics), organically grown cacao and a sense of self-indulgence.

In addition, since theirs is a market strongly driven by visitors, Hawaiian Host takes note of that group's tendency to pick up trial-size samples first, on impulse, then to come back and buy larger packages for gifts.

Gepitulan nods when an interviewer mentions that many home cooks are nervous about candy-making, or have had bad experiences. Fudge that gets grainy. Candy that won't set.

Candy, she says, is very temperamental and particularly sensitive to temperature and moisture.

Unfortunately for Island candy-makers, hot and humid conditions are the worst for candy-making.

But the problem goes further. Fudge and its many cousins — perhaps the most popular holiday candies — require a vigorous beating with a wooden spoon in order to achieve the desired, creamy smooth texture.

The key is to cool the chocolate sufficiently to keep large crystals from forming, then to mix properly to spread the small crystals through the mixture, so the fudge will "set" and cut properly.

Professional confectioners use a technique called "slabbing," in which the candy is poured out onto a marble slab (which, of course, is very cold) in a loose rectangle, then rapidly folded from the edges inward in a repetitive motion. This works well, and is quick, but is a little beyond the skills of most home cooks.

Corn syrup, evaporated milk, marshmallow "creme" and other ingredients are sometimes used to help prevent crystallization.

The candy trivia for the day in Gepitulan's kitchen (which she not-so-jokingly refers to as her "office") was this: Fudge is actually a form of caramel, a mixture of sugar, butter and milk or cream. Chocolate is merely a flavor of fudge. There's also penuche (brown sugar fudge), maple (made with maple syrup), butterscotch (dark corn syrup), coconut and even coffee fudge.

The beauty of Gepitulan's shortcut fudge recipe (see recipe above) is that because it's made with prepared candy, you don't need to go through all the measured and elaborate steps required for from-scratch fudge-making.

But if you're up for that, here are her suggestions for success: