A little while back the City College Peterborough brought out their 2017/2018 catalogue for small courses and the one to catch my eye, obviously, was:
‘Sweets & Chocolate Making: Would you like to be able to make your own handmade chocolates, sweets and marzipan fruits? This short course will demonstrate how to make your own sweets and how to box them to give as gifts.’
Errr – yes! Even though I’ve not done a course at the college for around 12 years I booked in anticipation of learning something new! (Just £22 for 3 hours – bargain!) And, what a good choice I made.
This morning’s course started at 10 in a kitchen area of the college with 12 of us eager to learn chocolate skills, all we needed to bring with us was an apron and some boxes to carry our goodies home – even better – FREE chocolates (whoop).
We started with some bain-maries and heated an assortment of chocolate: white, milk and dark. It’s lengthy and tiring stuff, breaking up and stirring chocolate with no licking. Our first batch were hearts so we started with skimming our moulds and then popping them in the fridge to set. Our second batch were deep squares…the room fell silent for at least 20 minutes as all heads were down, glasses off, trying to finely cover small triangles in white chocolate in the bases of our moulds. You could hear a chocolate drop! (get it?) This followed with a triangle of dark chocolate, a triangle of milk chocolate and then the fourth and final triangle, thank goodness, with a mix of all 3 (for mine).
Our third batch was a small rose-shaped mould which was filled with white chocolate to around half way. In the fridge they went to set. During this time we were creating a truffle with melted chocolate, apricot jam, Madeira cake and chocolate swiss roll cake – to be honest we were all in chocolate heaven – you know I said no licking – well…. that’s not exactly true! I definitely caught one or two with mouths full of swiss roll opposite me. LOL. Mixing with hands into a fine slippery ball, our truffle mix was left to sweat as we reached for bowls of chocolate strands; some milk and some plain. Rolling our truffle mix into small balls they were then coated in the strands and popped into small paper cases, unless of course it fell out of the case and accidentally fell into your mouth, then there was around 12 small delicious little bundles or maybe 11!
Set to the side to dry a little we brought back our batch of chocolate hearts and filled these through a piping bag with soft caramel and then topped and skimmed them with more chocolate to seal them and place back in the fridge. Our batch of squares were brought out of which were then filled with little squares of Jamaica cake (gingery sponge) ensuring room around the outside ready to pour the seal of chocolate. The rose mould was brought out and a half-hazelnut was added, have you ever tried to cut a hazelnut in half? – and then recovered in white chocolate to finish, then guess what? – back in the fridge to set. Finger’s licked and tables cleared we had to wait and wait and wait.
The problem with melted chocolate is that it has to set. The 3 hour course had already run over into 3 1/2 hours, but the course Tutor didn’t mind, there was a pile of washing up to do, and he offered obligingly (second whoop). Most of us had no choice but to take our chocolates home to finish setting. But we all agree we had a great time getting all chocolatey and will definitely be looking forward to a chocolate-munching evening!
So, I think on behalf of us all, we’d like to thank Justin for the patience he had with us – (he over-estimated how long it would take us to fill triangles in!) and for giving us a great morning in a small sweet heaven. Watch this space for chocolatiers popping up all over Peterborough now! Justin teaches at CP Learning Trust – learning for well-being Fenland – a not-for-profit charitable organisation where he also covers a lot of other creative courses. (www.cplearningtrust.org) and does the occasional course at City College (Brook Street).
If you think you’d like to learn something new, why not give it a try?… there are plenty of Saturday or evening courses at the City College and they don’t all cost an arm and a leg to do. You may surprise yourself with some new friends and enjoy a new hobby. (www.citycollegepeterborough.co.uk)
