A Girl's Essential: Melange Chocolate

I was given a gift voucher by colleagues last year as my birthday present, that is the voucher for a Chocolate making workshop for 2! I finally booked myself in for the chocolate making session with Melange Chocolate for a 3.5 hours indulging chocolate course.

There were around 20 of us in a classroom on that day. Isabelle said that it was bigger than usual (should really be just around 10 people), but none of us could change the dates, so she managed to fit us all in. And of course the majority of them were women, all were self-claimed chocoholics. We introduced ourselves and mentioned what kind of chocolate we like to eat (there were some weird ones... like salted savoury chocolate, chilli ones...)

Then Isabelle gave us a brief introduction of the origin of chocolate, from cocoa to powder, to cocoa butter. She even showed us some pictures of the decorative chocolate competitionn held in Paris every year. They were all fashion inspired - ie chocolate couture dresses!

Then we finally got to the first 'making' of the course - making a chocolate ganache. Isabelle heated some double cream then poured onto the milk chocolate buttons and asked us to stir until all chocolates had melted and became glossy. Then she divided the ganache into individual pots (shared between 2 people), and we were asked to flavour the ganache to our own liking! There were limited choice of spices on the table - Cumin, Chilli, Ginger, Cinnamon, Vanilla extract. I flavoured mine with Chilli and Vanilla. Then our ganaches were placed in the freezer for later.

Next, we whipped butter and cream to make buttercream, and flavoured it with vanilla to create Vanilla Buttercream. Then we piped the buttercream into swirly shapes, ready to be put in the fridge.

Then, we were taught how to tamper the chocolate. Dark, Milk and White chocolate need to be tampered to a specific temperatures, and Isabelle demonstrated how it should be done, with a thermometer.

Afterwards, the real fun part began -- coating and decorating our own chocolate truffles.

On the table, we had dark chocolate ganache, our own customised flavoured ganache, vanilla buttercream; White, milk and dark tampered chocolates; many decorations and confetti.

We got down to business and got our hands absolutely covered in chocolate! We rolled ganache into balls, then covered them with tampered chocolate to give its chocolate coating, then added sprinkles, cocoa powder, or drizzle with more chocolate! Some even attempted on double and triple coating!!!

Isabelle provided us with clear plastic gift bags and colourful ribbons to bag up our chocolates, and that was when I realised that we had made so many! We ended up going home with bags and bags of chocolates!

After the workshop, I could not resist but going into Isabelle's shop - the Melange on the high street and purchased a few of her chocolate creations.

All in all, it was a lovely chocolate workshop, and I could not believe how 3.5 hours just flew by so quickly!