Chocolate rabbits are multiplying like, well, rabbits for Easter Sunday at local candy store The Confectionary.

Come Easter, candy stores like The Confectionary, 149 N. Second St., adjust their focus to providing holiday-themed sweets for customers. Confectionary co-owner Todd Hendrey said his main focus this week has been molding chocolate.

“So Easter is a lot of molding,” Todd said. “It’s big bunnies, small bunnies, getting stuff ready in pre-packaged stuff for baskets.”

The process of molding is not a family secret, Todd said. It begins with melting chocolate in a machine, tempering the chocolate, placing it in a mold, cooling it and shaving off the unnecessary remains.

Todd and Betsy Hendrey use modern machinery to a minimum in this process. They want to keep their store looking retro, and some of their equipment is more than 100 years old.

The Hendreys said their main goal is to serve their community. They said their handmade, carefully crafted sweets have more love put into them than store-brand candies.

“Another perk of our candy is that we do make it by hand,” Betsy Hendrey said. “We pay attention to our ingredients, we pay attention to our suppliers and we are very mindful of what goes into our products, and we try to keep the quality very high.”

The Confectionary’s chocolate bunnies have proven a favorite for children because they are not hollow.

“There’s nothing more disappointing at Easter than running around as a kid [and] when you bite into the ear or the tail of the bunny and it’s hollow in the middle. So that was a decision we made a long time ago, to go solid chocolate,” Todd Hendrey said.

The store connects with families by taking orders for specialized Easter candy.

“There’s a lot of people ordering personalized Easter bunnies,” Betsy Hendrey said. “Which is a nice tradition for a lot of families. They get their bunnies from us, and we appreciate that.”