When Xanthe was asked to donate a box of hand made chocolates to the Galvin's Chance Valentine Day Chocolate Box Auction I was thrilled that she turned to me for help in creating her box.
The charity is all about giving young disadvantaged people the chance to get a training leading to working in the hospitality industry so I was on board with little persuasion!
www.chocsforchance.org The auction went live on 26th January for anyone who wants to try the delicious chocolates that we created using Valrhona chocolate and our own collaborated inspirational flavours.
I collected Xanthe from Yatton train station on a drizzly Tuesday. I'd been working in London the night before so felt rather jaded. I'd left my kitchen spotless ready for our day of chocolate making the day before only to find that my eldest had been using it for A level recipe testing in my absence. Her idea of tidy does not quite match mine! At the train staion Xanthe stepped off the platform clutching a coffee, glamorous as ever. The look in her eye told me that she was a woman on a mission to create perfection and I found this rather infectious! With relief she wasn't in the slightest bit fazed by my daughters hap hazard effort on leaving my kitchen pristine. We are both the Mothers of teenagers, there was a silent understanding between us that we are in the same club!
Without delay we got straight down to the business of matching Valrhona's superb chocolate to our pre decided flavours. Our taste buds had the most lovely awakening and quickly we were tuned into appreciating the luscious chocolate notes with our chosen flavours. It was a fairly obvious decision to us which flavour best matched which chocolate - no disagreements and we were both singing off the dsame song sheet. Perfect!
We needed to make small batches of each chocolate. I quickly got to work on making the ganaches needed and Xanthe got down to the boring work of preparing the moulds. This means polishing, proper polishing. Each shell of chocolate had to be made out of the chosen chocolate and I tempered and filled moulds whilst Xanthe hand rolled our truffles. It was full on. Non stop. At one stage I did remember offering to make Xanthe a coffee and a vague mention on the subject of lunch - but before we knew it it was 4.30pm. We had been so consumed in the 'chocolate zone' that neither of us had even thought about sustenance - let alone taking a break!
We were both so proud of our chocolates. Really really delighted and pleased with ourselves! We hope that they will be bid for when the auction goes live and make a decent contribution towards this fabulous charity.
green tea with jivara 40%
sanguinicce with manjari 64%
salt and pepper caramels with dulcey
stem ginger and rosemary truffles with guanaja 70%
quince cheese enrobed in carribe 66% with hazelnuts
www.chocsforchance.org
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