Life is like a box of chocolates

For my birthday, way back in February, my work colleagues bought me a voucher for a course with my baking buddy Sarah at The Cupcake Oven. I’ve known Sarah for a number of years since I first joined the local Sugarcraft Guild in order to be able to attend a workshop with my baking hero Paul Bradford. I’ve been on several of her courses and always have a fantastic day and learn new techniques. Sometimes I don’t really learn much but enjoy some therapeutic time making cake and the company.

I decided to do the Chocolate Box course this time. No cake involves unless you count the cupcake Sarah always prepares for her clients, and a slab of oreo cake she had left over from the previous days course. There was only myself an one other student so we had Sarah’s attention and had time for plenty of laughs and chat.

We made a wide variety of milk, dark and white chocolates. Orange ganache truffles, cassis buttons, white chocolate and raspberry truffles, caramel cups, enrobed marzipan, with any left over chocolate turned into solid moulds. All beautifully boxed and bagged.

In my head I can see me recreating these as gifts for people. Reality is, Sarah had prepared a lot of the items having wished things out to save time. If I was doing this from scratch, it would take several days. The trouble being you can’t rush chocolate.

When you melt it, you need to get it to the right temperature, then let it cool down a bit again but not too much. Once you’ve done what you’re going to do with it you need to chill it or wait for it to set a bit before putting it in the fridge. That’s assuming you have plenty of fridge space.

I may invest in some moulds and I made dabble in it at some time but for now I shall enjoy my treats over the coming days. I may share some with C if he’s lucky.