My good friend treated me to a chocolate workshop afternoon for my Birthday and it was fantastic fun and very tasty indeed!
On arrival the room was set out with 2 large worktops covered in candy heaven; coconut flakes, hundreds and thousands, nuts, marshmallows, digestive biscuits, chocolate flakes etc etc. As well as the fun candy bits we had mixing bowls, plenty of chocolate to melt (milk and dark), cream, thermometers and most importantly...aprons! I made a slight error in wearing white jeans that day not knowing what my Birthday treat was, DO NOT wear anything white as it can get messy!
The workshop began with our tutor telling us about the history of the cocoa bean and how it has become the chocolate we know and love today. Everyone in the room told the group what their favourite chocolate was and it was a nice way to break the ice and get to know everyone taking part.
First on the menu were GIANT chocolate buttons that we could decorate however we like. We all got very carried away with the candy decorations and there were some highly amusing creations in the room once we were done.
We then went on to enjoy nougat chunks whilst learning more about the art of melting the chocolate down to exactly the right temperature for making truffles. My friend and I went with milk chocolate, saving the dark chocolate for decoration. Melting the chocolate down correctly requires some serious elbow grease when mixing. We teamed up to see which group could get there bowl to the right temperature the quickest. We were then ready to add the cream to our individual mixes and get rolling with our truffles. This was the messiest part of the workshop that had us all highly amused.
We created all sorts of truffles whilst listening to music and having a good chat and a giggle. Whilst they didn’t look so pretty (the rolling takes some practice), they tasted seriously good!
When there was no more chocolate to play with it was time to get all the mess off our hands (and arms and in some cases the odd splatter on a cheek). We then took our creations out of the fridge and were able to wrap them in cute ribbon tied bags to take home.
A wonderful creative afternoon with one of life’s tastiest pleasures!
No comments:
Post a Comment