Chocolate making with Kenspeckle (25/1/14)
I love to try new experiences with Leigh. We went on a chocolate making workshop with Kenspeckle at Lynemouth in Northumberland this month. I got this half price Groupon offer for Leigh’s Christmas present.
We’ve been on a chocolate making workshop before with Chocolating (again a Groupon offer) last June. You can see photos here. We learnt how to make chocolate curls, handmade orange flavoured truffles and peppermint chocolate bark.
I thought it would be fun to do another workshop together as we’d enjoyed the first one. I also knew that Kenspeckle’s one would be a different experience, as I’d seen them do a demo at a British Sugarcraft Guild meeting. They make enrobed chocolates as have tempering machines. This keeps the chocolate tempered (at a constant temperature). You can make crisp and smooth shells using moulds this way. At the previous chocolate making workshop, there was no tempering machine, so we made chocolates by hand rolling. Enrobed chocolates tend to look more professional (I think!) than hand rolled ones. The first workshop was more practical for learning how to make chocolates at home. The second workshop was more of an experience day, where you got to produce some posh looking chocolates to take home. You know you wouldn’t be able to reproduce these at home.
We had the opportunity to make two different chocolates with a filling of our choice. Leigh chose to make a dark chocolate ganache flavoured with chilli and caramel. I chose white chocolate flavoured with pistachios and toffee for my ganache centres. The shells were made with milk chocolate then decorated with white and dark chocolate. These flavour combinations turned out really well!
I would go back on this workshop, as would like to try other flavour combinations for the ganache. I think it is too expensive at the full price of £64. However, we felt it was definitely worth the £32 we spent for two people for a three hour workshop and for the quality of the chocolates you got to take away. If you buy posh artisan chocolates in shops, you would be paying a lot of money for them.
We’ve been on a chocolate making workshop before with Chocolating (again a Groupon offer) last June. You can see photos here. We learnt how to make chocolate curls, handmade orange flavoured truffles and peppermint chocolate bark.
I thought it would be fun to do another workshop together as we’d enjoyed the first one. I also knew that Kenspeckle’s one would be a different experience, as I’d seen them do a demo at a British Sugarcraft Guild meeting. They make enrobed chocolates as have tempering machines. This keeps the chocolate tempered (at a constant temperature). You can make crisp and smooth shells using moulds this way. At the previous chocolate making workshop, there was no tempering machine, so we made chocolates by hand rolling. Enrobed chocolates tend to look more professional (I think!) than hand rolled ones. The first workshop was more practical for learning how to make chocolates at home. The second workshop was more of an experience day, where you got to produce some posh looking chocolates to take home. You know you wouldn’t be able to reproduce these at home.
We had the opportunity to make two different chocolates with a filling of our choice. Leigh chose to make a dark chocolate ganache flavoured with chilli and caramel. I chose white chocolate flavoured with pistachios and toffee for my ganache centres. The shells were made with milk chocolate then decorated with white and dark chocolate. These flavour combinations turned out really well!
I would go back on this workshop, as would like to try other flavour combinations for the ganache. I think it is too expensive at the full price of £64. However, we felt it was definitely worth the £32 we spent for two people for a three hour workshop and for the quality of the chocolates you got to take away. If you buy posh artisan chocolates in shops, you would be paying a lot of money for them.
Comments
Post a Comment