On Sunday night past, 11 friends and I had the most delicious and amazing and fun 4 hours ever.
We made chocolate. Real chocolate.
Downtown St. John’s has a small local Artisan chocolate company called the Newfoundland Chocolate Company.
They make all their chocolates by hand, using small farm cocoa beans from around the world, and local NL ingredients for almost everything else.
The fillings they have are incredible – all local berries, for example, and their packaging is beautiful – go check out their website, you won’t be sorry!
The 12 of us did the three hour class (we were there for four) that included learning how to temper chocolate, making our own, and learning about and tasting their single origin chocolate. It was worth every penny and more. And the chocolates we made look like a pro did them! 🙂
First step, we had to pick and fill our moulds to make the shells – half of us were die hard dark lovers, the other half were milk lovers. I went dark!
Can I rock a hairnet or what?!?
Of course, we all got well covered in chocolate during the process…
… but that was easily licked cleaned off!
Our good-natured and very patient tour guides/hosts/teachers for the night were Andrea, one of the chocolatiers…
…and Christina, who co-owns the company with her husband:
On a side note, Christina is also an amazing potter and sells the most beautiful pieces at the shop – such as mugs that look like dark, milk, and white chocolate all swirled together.
Once our shells were set, we added our chosen additions to the chocolate filling – I went with partridgeberry powder, crushed hazelnuts, and cocoa nibs – filled the shells, and then topped them off with another layer of chocolate.
Can you tell how excited Rae Lynn and I were? 🙂
While we waited for them to set, we had a tour of the building, and sampled their Single Origin Chocolates. Wow, what a difference using single origin beans makes! The 5 we tried were all completely different. Although all were dark, the underlying flavours ran from black licorice, to mango, to cherry, to banana. This is not your cheap little Hershey bar, my friends!
By that time, our chocolates were done!
Now, don’t they look great?!? Luckily, we didn’t fancy them up – that would have ruined the whole pro look altogether!
We ended the night by getting certificates and asking them to hire us. We got the paper, but no job offers – sad. Still have my fingers crossed though.
All in all, one of the best nights I’ve ever had, with the greatest group of friends.
We’re already planning another round so Christina and Andrea? Get geared up, the crazy girls will be heading your way again!
S.
