ODP2 The Report - The Chocolate Factory

by Bex (Pics of me will mostly be B&W as I appear to be insanely pink in the face!  I blame the internal stress heat!)

On Saturday afternoon at ODP2 we all headed to a chocolate party at No.1 Chocolate Factory at St George's Cross.  I'd booked the hen night package as it was shorter (we needed time to get ready for the party) and cheaper (we had a lot on and I was trying to keep costs down for everyone who travelled up/through from London, Manchester and Edinburgh).  We couldn't go any earlier as they had lots of children in for a chocolate party beforehand (sounds like a fun, messy time for any of you with kids!)  The class cost £15 each for 1.5 hours (the website states that they will provide a party meal as well but when I asked for a discount as we didn't want this they said it should say that they CAN provide these things, they're not included which wasn't clear on the website).

When we arrived we were taken through to the chocolate room at the back and prepped with aprons and hats.

One of the owners, James, discussed some things about chocolate but I found it very difficult to hear as there was another group at the other end of the room and due to the layout, it was a very echoey space and became extremely noisy which was a bit annoying.  With us all being spread out (there were 14 of us) I could only hear him when he came down to our end of the table.  I would have been upset if we'd booked the more in depth course but since we were just there for some fun and chocolate I wasn't too bothered about learning anything.

Everyone paying rapt attention but I got a cheeky grin from Lara when she heard me snapping away!  ;)

We then each received a dollop of melted chocolate to make a chocolate lolly.  To spread it out, we had to place our paper & chocolate on a tray and drop/throw it onto the table (again, I couldn't really hear what the instructions were as he started at the other end so I just copied what I saw everyone doing - a bit too enthusiastically and mine went into a massive spodge instead of a nice round circle.  Oops!)

Mahj's perfect round lolly

We then decorated them using white chocolate in a mini piping cone which inevitably led to some direct mouth squirting!

The legendary photo-bomber strikes again!

Next we each received a block of chilled ganache to break up and roll into balls for truffles.  This was pretty messy and we were provided with gloves to keep our hands clean but Bella had a better way...

We got stern looks from Rebecca ;)

Then it was time for dipping!  We received bowls of melted chocolate and coconut (Mahj and I both dislike dessicated coconut so just used/ate the chocolate) to make our truffles.

      Bella's gorgeous lolly!                                     Mahj caught eating her truffles!

We then got to sample some of the gorgeous chocolates they make for sale and had to guess the flavours.  Our competitive sides came out as we were split into groups for the taste test.

We sampled Coffee & Hazelnut, Passionfruit, Chai Latte (my favourite) and Glasgow Fog (Coconut & Earl Grey Tea).

We then packaged up our truffles and lollies before racing back to my flat to get ready for the parteeeeee!

We had a brilliant time at the chocolate factory - it was the perfect afternoon activity (after we did the roller disco last year) and I would definitely be interested in the longer, more in depth class to learn to temper chocolate and other techniques but would definitely prefer that in a small group.