MyChocolate chocolate tasting and truffle making workshop

There are certainly some perks to being a food blogger, perhaps chief among which is being invited to events, workshops and demonstrations. I was invited to a chocolate tasting and truffle making class by MyChocolate in central London. MyChocolate offers all sorts of workshops for individuals, groups, hen parties, corporate entertainment and so on - including making and decorating a giant chocolate button, chocolate truffles, cocktail mixing, and chocolate fudge. Their main venue is in London, near Farringdon, where they have rooms of different sizes to cater for different groups. They also put on events at other venues like Vinopolis, and also have branches in Brighton and Manchester.

On this particular evening in February they had invited a group of food bloggers to sample chocolate, drink prosecco and make truffles. We were welcomed by our demonstrator Sophie, who explained that first we would be tasting chocolates with different cocoa contents and flavours. I don't think I have a particularly discerning palate as other people could detect notes of aniseed and caramel in the various chocolates, but it all tasted like chocolate to me! It was obvious however how much of a difference there was between each sample.

Then we began the messy process of making truffles. I'd done it once before at the Chocolate Boutique Hotel in Bournemouth - we used a similar technique here but dipped the truffles in melted chocolate, rather than rolled them around in our hands, so the table got quite messy!
Sophie told us the right quantity of cream to mix with the melted chocolate - we were using dark chocolate as it sets faster.

The mixture thickens very quickly and you can spoon it into a piping bag.

Pipe out small pieces of the chocolate ganache - either in a straight line or little ball. The shape doesn't make any difference at this stage as you will roll the chocolate into balls or other shapes if you are feeling more creative, like I was!

Simply roll the truffles into balls - you need to do this quite quickly though before the chocolate starts to melt!

We then dipped each truffle in melted chocolate, tapped them on the end of a fork to remove the excess, and placed them on the paper tablecloth to set.

I shaped a few of mine like hearts as it was just after Valentine's day. We had a choice of toppings to sprinkle on the truffles, including cocoa powder, chopped nuts, coconut and dried raspberry pieces.

We also half-dipped some large marshmallows; here you can see I dipped one in coconut and the other in white chocolate shavings. These tasted really good!

Here are a couple of truffles with chopped nuts - the table did get very messy!

The raspberry pieces went really well with the heart-shaped truffles, I thought.

We were each given a small gold box to package up our truffles in and take them home.

I had a very enjoyable evening and would not hesitate to recommend MyChocolate if you are looking for a chocolate-making workshop in London, or in Manchester or Brighton.

Thanks to MyChocolate for inviting me to the workshop.