Mark loves to make candy. He makes terrific marshmallows and to die for brittles, but he's had a problem with chocolate. When I saw, on my favorite Travelzoo site, an offer for a chocolate class at a New York artisanal candy store, I rushed to buy it for him. The offer was for two people, so I went also. I have no artistic ability and am clumsy to boot, so this was a challenge. Sivonne, our patient instructor, was great. She showed us all their machines that temper, enrobe and coat their candy. Mark was in heaven, but, naturally, now wants to spend big bucks on a counter top tempering machine. The first thing that we did was fill our bags with chocolate. I went first and began as usual - I forgot to step on the off pedal in time, overfilled my bag and had chocolate running down my arms. While Mark filled his to the perfect level, Sivonne fixed my bag and I cleaned up for the first of many times. We then piped mendiants (flat wafers) onto parchment. Mark's were all the same size in nice straight rows. Mine......well......weren't. There were many toppings for us to add. Large ones like Kix, Cocoa Puffs, peanuts and granola and small ones such as cinnamon, cocoa powder, ginger and coconut. That was fun. Then we moved to grignotines (clusters). We mixed large ingredients into the chocolate to make it thicker and then used our gloved hands to scoop out the clusters. Mark managed to make his almost all the same size and again in nice neat rows. I was beginning to think how good he'd look covered in chocolate - which wouldn't have been difficult as I now had chocolate everywhere, including, somehow, my hair. While I made another cleaning stop, Sivonne and Mark picked out a mold for our next adventure. Mark chose what he thought was a wreath, but turned out to be a mummy face - by now I was celebrating any misstep he might make and gloated - I knew that MY mold was bunnies😊 First we had to fill the mold with a thin coat of chocolate - yep, you're right, mine was not thin and I once again was covered in chocolate. That was fixed, I got washed and we took our molds to fill with caramel. (Well, of corse Mark's was perfect!). This time, I was able feel better - Mark overfilled! Well, of course I had too, but was not alone this time. Somehow, though, when we put the thin coat of chocolate on the bottom and scraped off the excess, Mark's were once again just right and I ended up scraping off caramel and chocolate into one big pile - much of it on my person again.
That was our last project and we got to sack up our creations to bring home. Somehow Mark's bag weighed about twice as much as mine and I wondered how that had happened until I remembered how much I had washed (oh,okay, and licked) off my hands, arms and face.
We had a great time and Mark got a lot of his questions answered and I don't think I gave Sivonne a nervous breakdown.
If you like chocolate, I highly recommend this class. It's at Tache Chocolate, 254 Broome St, New York NY 10002.
(212) 473-3200.
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