Chocolate Apprentice

Lustre Dust

It is almost Hallowe’en, and the acting students have been asking if they can wear their costumes to our next rehearsal, which falls the day before.  They always amaze me with their creativity and imagination.  I remember one of them making an incredible full body, sandwich costume, complete with foam and fabric condiments oozing out the sides.  It always makes for a fun, and surprisingly productive rehearsal, as it gives them another obstacle to work through, while blocking and learning lines.  They are an advanced class, after all. [Read more…]

An Appreciation for Small Things

She’s only been gone a couple of days, but I miss her, and we’ve all fallen in love with her.

We had the great privilege last week, of hosting a lovely young lady from Japan, as part of an inter-school exchange program, in which our younger son is taking part.

It’s a fantastic opportunity for him to go to that lovely country in the spring, and for all of us to learn a tiny bit about Japanese culture in the meantime. [Read more…]

Peppermint and Chocolate

It really is fall.  I’m cold.  I feel the chill between my shoulder blades, which are almost permanently up around my ears, these days.  I have had to consign my cute, polka-dotted summer ankle socks to the back of the drawer and pull out my serious grey “sock monkey” wooly socks.  Yesterday, I put on the raincoat I swore I would replace this year, because it makes me look like a wrinkly pre-schooler, but haven’t because it still has “lots of good wear in it”. [Read more…]

Fancy Pants Chocolate Bars

I think it was looking at, salivating over and finally tasting those wonderful chocolate bars at The Chocolate Tree, in Edinburgh, that made me want to try creating my own.

Perfectly tempered, glossy but unassuming on one side, when flipped over, they are a pretty picture of jewel-like fruits and roasted nuts.  It must be confessed, the idea of placing these items on the chocolate, rather than suffering again through my late, ham-fisted attempts at enrobing, really strikes my fancy, this week. [Read more…]

Fabulous Fat

I have been watching and re-watching the video on the Ecole Chocolate website, detailing how to create hand-made transfer sheets, which are used to decorate the tops of chocolates.

It looks fascinating and fun and I can’t wait to try it out.  The beautiful sheets of coloured, tempered cocoa butter, flecked with gold lustre dust, shown at the end of the video will, I am sure make the perfectly enrobed chocolates, which I am determined to master, become small pieces of modern art. [Read more…]