My Chocolate - Chocolate making workshop

5th April 2009

Sunday afternoon chocolate making sounds as good a way as any to spend your time! Eight of us went to the Minerva trip and were given expert information and tuition on chocolate.

Firstly we ‘blind’ sampled good and rather more ordinary chocolate followed by tasting various pieces of chocolate and guessing what spices and other ingredients were used in flavouring it. We handled chocolate beans and pods whilst listening to its history and original use in Mexico.

Our demonstrator made Madagascan Vanilla Cream, Caramel Fudge, Nut Brittle (with one or two of us helping) and we enjoyed piping the Vanilla Cream, getting more enterprising in our designs as we became a little more confident! These were all put in the fridge and we had a short break whilst the decks were cleared in the workshop.

Then it was our turn to be let loose! The table had been furnished with bowls of molten chocolate (dark, milk and white) and smaller dishes with various contents like vermicelli, cocoa, coconut, and hundreds and thousands. The assistant demonstrator brought the fudge, vanilla cream and nut brittle out which we cut into small pieces. Each of us was given a small pitchfork to balance the sweet on to dip it in the chocolate: some were more successful than others and some became ‘offerings’ which fell to the bottom of the dish! We were able to let our creative skills loose on the decorating.

It was a thoroughly messy but enjoyable event and we were happy licking our fingers! We each left with our doggie bag of offerings nicely labelled and tied, but sadly not of marketable quality – still we could keep practising! Many thanks to Jen for organising such a good event.

                                                                 Jane Dunnage, Sheffield High School