I usually don’t pay attention to Groupon unless there’s a deal on Starbucks gift cards. But when a couple friends found a chocolate-making workshop on the site, I signed up to attend with them.
You know I love ordering custom cupcakes, but I haven’t done any real baking myself in a long time unless Pillsbury cookies count. It’s actually quite fun to decorate and customize treats without paying extra for someone else to do it.
Inside The Mad Bean cafe on Eglinton Ave West, we sat together and learned about the history of chocolate. For example, I discovered that the Mayans were the first to discover chocolate and for a long time, only the wealthy enjoyed it. (They didn’t have Walmart or convenience stores back then!) Spanish princess Marie-Therese was one of the most influential public figures who introduced chocolate to others, such as at her wedding.
Then we got to sample chocolates with cinnamon, ginger and cayenne. They were all so good!
Next, we put on our gloves and got to work at our stations. We dipped marshmallows in chocolate, made truffles and decorated a lava cake. This was the really fun part.
Some of my truffle decorations look messy and didn’t make the cut for the blog, such as my attempt at drawing the @ sign in white chocolate, but a few of them turned out well. I made chocolates with my initials in white chocolate, as well as a couple with hashtags. In addition to using white chocolate, we also played with maple bits, cocoa powder and coconut, but I avoided the coconut.
I loved putting a white chocolate crown on the lava cake, even if it’s hard to recognize it after we baked it and then I refrigerated it at home. The lava cake was amazing!
All of the chocolate tasted good, which is not surprising because our workshop leader Olivia said it was all imported from Belgium. Yum!
Overall, it was a fun and unique activity and I would recommend it if you’re curious. You don’t need to be a foodie to enjoy it. Olivia said it’s also an effective team building exercise for companies and a cool way to entertain party guests. They’ll bring all the supplies to you! The workshop would make a great gift too. Sitting next to me was a guy who bought passes to the workshop as a gift for his mom. We all loved it!
For more information, you can visit their site: chocolatetales.ca