Katie: I'll admit it, I have a VERY sweet tooth. I love all the things that are very bad for you, and chocolate is probably my biggest weakness. So when Chelsie found the Chocolate Delight Workshop I jumped at the opportunity to learn for myself how to make some of my favourite treats!
Chelsie and I attended The Chocolate Delight Workshop in January 2012. The Class we attended was held in London at the highly prestigious Queen's Tennis Club. Every Summer Queen's Tennis Club hosts the mens warm up to Wimbledon Tournament and is a really beautiful club. We were warmly welcomed to the class and assigned to our designated table, where we donned our plastic aprons ready for some messy chocolate creations!
Chelsie: The class begun with a highly experienced chocolatier giving us a neat introduction into the art of chocolate. We were told how chocolate is actually good for us, unfortunately by this he means dark chocolate rather then the confectionary chocolate which Katie and I are more accustomed too! The chocolatier demonstrated in different stages how we would create our very own truffles, with stage one completed we grabbed our cooking utensils and began our own creations!
Katie: Stage 1 consisted of us mixing chocolate and fresh cream, rather naively I thought this would be rather easy. It is not. The chocolate and the fresh cream smell heavenly when combined, but is very difficult to mix. However with lots of giggles, alternative stirring and 'we need to hit the weights' remarks we achieved the correct constancy. The next stage required a further demonstration and involved the art of piping. This stage was so much fun, we had a few teething problems in the beginning but it was pretty easy to get to grips with, and I think ours went rather well! The third stage, required us to cut the chocolate paste into roughly thumb sized chunks as these will be our truffles.
Chelsie: Kate and I both have very cold hands. We found out from our chocolatier that this put us at a serious advantage when making truffles. Due to the temperature of the human hand, truffles can sometimes melt, which is not only messy but also not very visually pleasing. In most cases this is overcome by using the fingertips for rolling... However with us we were able to use the palms of our hands without any problems. We now had our basic foundation for the Truffles.
Katie: The final stage. This stage was my favourite, it was both a combination of extreme messiness and fun! We were provided with a big tray of the following toppings; cocoa powder, icing sugar, coconut and chopped mixed nuts. Chelsie was assigned 'dipper', by which I mean she placed our truffles into yet even more chocolate to provide a coating (and managed to get herself coated in chocolate in the meantime) and I was the 'coater'. The coater applies the four toppings to the truffles, my favourite flavour without a doubt was coca powder, but Chelsie's preference rested with Coconut.
Chelsie: At the end of the course we put our little truffles into the bags provided and tied with a ribbon of our choice. This was a lovely ending to a great course. We left with lots of truffles which was not only good for us (yum!), but we had plenty to give to family and friends. I look forward to replicating the class at home for my friends in the very near future!
The Chocolate Delight Workshop Guide Ranking
This was our first chocolate course, and we really enjoyed it! The course was well structures and the staff were very supportive and helpful during our chocolate creating quest! However the course due to its size did make it feel a little crowded, and in cases of demonstration for example it was in difficult to view which was annoying. We also felt that class was very fast paced, and in some cases not everybody had finished when we moved onto the next stage. This would be a good class to go on for a hen party, or even mother/ daughter day out.
Staff 10/10 Staff 9/10
Setting 7/10 Setting 7/10
Food 9/10 Food 9/10
Overall 9/10 Overall 9/10
Chelsie Katie
DURATION
The course lasts 2 to 2.5 hours and is set in a relaxed and friendly environment.
RECOMMENDED FOR
Chocolate Delight workshops are perfect for any chocolate lover! Suitable for individuals, couples, groups and hen parties.
INGREDIENTS
- 64% dark chocolate (certified wheat and gluten free, product may contain traces of nuts)
- Cream
- Cocoa powder
- Icing sugar
- Desiccated coconut
- Chopped mixed nuts
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