The Marshmallow Center of Beverly Hills

There is a place in Beverly Hills where you can buy eight kinds of marshmallow. You might try marshmallow in caramel, marshmallow in English toffee, marshmallow in coconut, marshmallow in walnut, marshmallow in mocha, marshmallow in mint, or plain marshmallow with dark or white chocolate. Some are covered with crushed toffee, others with coconut or nuts.

This is just the latest chapter in the long history of Edelweiss Chocolates, founded in 1941 as Candy Roundup by Grace Young, a candy maker and master hand-dipper of fine chocolates. Some years later, Herman Schmidt, a chocolatier from Switzerland, purchased the company and renamed the place after the Swiss national flower.

Schmidt introduced such chocolates as tosta , a candy made with ground almonds and honey mixed with chocolate, plus a line of marzipan and cocoa truffles. He’s also the man who introduced the chocolate-covered pretzel that became the rage in Los Angeles and was copied by hundreds of other chocolatiers. The current owner, Sam Rosen, not only developed the eight varieties of marshmallow but increased the original line of 45 chocolates to 80.

“We do everything from scratch,” Rosen says. “We even roast nuts here. We make the mallow from scratch, cook all the basic ingredients and cut and coat every chocolate by hand.” There are, in fact, two hand-dippers who do nothing but dip chocolate all day, Rosen says. Chocolates at Edelweiss range in price from $17 to $18.50 per pound.

* Edelweiss Chocolates, 444 N. Canon Drive, Beverly Hills, (310) 275-0341. Open Monday-Friday 9:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m., Saturday from 10 a.m.