I attended an evening Chocolate Making Masterclass with Divine Chocolate that was held at the Whole Foods Market Fulham. It was also quite timely as it was also ‘Chocolate Week | The UK’s biggest Chocolate celebration’ , with a big exhibition just down the road.
Divine is one of the only chocolate companies in the world which is 100% Fairtrade and whose cocoa farmers (the Kuapa Kokoo – a co-operative organisation set up in Ghana) have a significant ownership stake in the company.
Our instructor was Divine Chocolatier – Erik Houlihan-Jong. The session began with Erik talking us through the history of Divine Chocolate and explaining how the ‘bean to bar’ process (with some very kid friendly props).
We all selected small Milk and Dark chocolate pieces to begin the sensory experience, which involves looking at the sheen of the bar, listening for clean ‘snap’ and the most important part – the tasting. To really enjoy the flavours, I’ve been told it’s best to let the chocolate sit on the tongue and melt – no biting!
Truffle time: Divine Baking bars were used and chopped up, then cream was added to the melting chocolate mixture and stirred until the right consistency. Then it was out turn to get rolling. We all took some latex gloves and were given some blue peter style made earlier ganache mixes that were cooler to work with and plates of cocoa powder.
We were shown to roll the ganache truffles in the traditional way. My attempts were interesting – natural instinct when rolling is to use the palm, but actually it’s best to use the fingertips. We all looked like we had been doing chocolate surgery by the end. The finishing touch is to then roll the ganache ball into cocoa powder.
We also had the opportunity to try Erik’s special recipes – Wensleydale Cheese, Cranberries and White Chocolate truffles. An unexpected combination of creamy Wensleydale and tart cranberries with sweet white chocolate, that is very tasty.
Finally, as well as our truffle masterpieces, we were given a gift bag with a lovely selection of chocolates and recipe cards.
