The Blog

   "But now I can do it Professionally..."

Last night I took my mum to a Chocolate Appreciation course (supposedly for her birthday, but I just wanted some chocolate). The course description read as follows:

Taste your way through the history of chocolate from ancient to contemporary recipes. Take your taste buds on a journey and sample everything from chilli and rose to mouth watering Australian native flavours. Learn to detect the difference between compound and pure couverture chocolate, plus the characteristics of dark, milk and white chocolate. Find out the reason why some women NEED chocolate. All this in a friendly relaxed atmosphere.

What that doesn't mention is just how yummy are the chocolates this guy (Joseph of Kimberly Chocolates, who doesn't seem to have a website) makes! So very good! *bounces* But I'll start at the beginning...

So, the difference between *real* chocolate and compound chocolate is the way it melts in your mouth. Real chocolate is made with cocoa butter, which melts at 34 degrees C. Crappy compound chocolates use vegetable fat which melts at 38 or so, which means it doesn't melt in your mouth the same way.

Cocoa pods are awesome. They come in different colours (though we only got to play with a red one) and a decent-sized one will contain about 40 cocoa beans. The beans are roasted, and fermented, and in the process they go from being purple to a brown and they look like almonds. These then get mushed and turned into chocolate, though it wasn't until the 1830s or so (actually, I'm a little fuzzy on the numbers) that they invented chocolate as we know it in a solid form. For the most part chocolate has been a drink, for as long as there have been people living in the parts of the world where it grows natively.

Speaking of which, of the different chocolates I got to try (all at 56% cocoa), the one I liked best came from Cuba. It was very smooth to taste. I think James would have liked the spice of the Tanzanian chocolate, or maybe the Malaysian. But he would have liked the 100% chocolate best (though it had too much tannin for me)!

Oh, and we had hot chocolate, which was so yummy. The secret to hot chocolate is to use a mix of half milk / half cream, and to have about 70-80mL per person. Then you grate an entire bar of chocolate into it as it warms, and stir. If you want to use skim milk, add more cream. *grins*

We got to try a bunch of truffles, including a lemon myrtle (an Aussie bush) flavour, a peppermint one, a dried mango dipped in dark chocolate and something else that I'm obviously forgetting (Mum will no doubt read this and remind me). But they were all good.

And at the end, because chocolate is an appetite suppressant, I totally didn't need to eat any dinner. Or breakfast this morning (though I did have a bit of toast for morning tea).

So yeah, I had a great time, recommend it to everyone, and may yet go back for a chocolate making course in a few months when my wallet's recovered and I have free time. I love chocolate, don't you?

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