Chocolate Decadence

So I booked into this chocolate workshop with great enthusiasm and little knowledge. Never knew that chocolate making was such an art - well, of course I knew it had to be a little hard given how much Godiva and the like charge per 100g - but this was an eye opener.

The key to choc making (tempering) is apparently the very careful heating and cooling process that will melt the sugar crystals in the chocolate and give a lovely sheen to the product. Am not sure that I got everything right given that I was being called incessently by Children's Emergency about a relative's kid who needed to be admitted to hospital. The fun was in the making, and we chucked the low carb lifestyle out of the window and had our fingers in the pot half the time. Anyway, we packed away our little packages of Valrhona chocolate and trundled off happily in a Grand Marnier high. But somewhere between going back to the hospital, setting plug, going home, them little chooks rolled out of their container into the bag which, fortunately, being black, did not show the liberal dusting of Valrhona cocoa powder. So I didn't really get to show off the handiwork as most of the chocs were squished and had shed half their coating, but the family appreciated it anyway, especially Steffi, my genetic clone for chocoholism.

So the class probably gets a 3.5/5 rating on my food porn meter. Somehow this time I didn't get the overwhelming urge to try it out on my own. I guess in the end it boils down to having enough time and $lolly$ (to buy that freaking marble slab to cool the chocolate on!)