Ready - Send - Sample!

Yey! I have finally finished off the samples for my December 23, FaceBook Event. I created chocolate samples for the first set of people to join my FaceBook Group.

I made a white chocolate couveture bar, and painted hearts on it. I also added Merckens dark chocolate hearts, and painted those with red chocolate. My packaging looked a tad plain, so I added ribbon. I am liking the look now. I will have these in the mail, between tomorrow, and Friday.

Grasshopper Becomes The Teacher

I had brought a few of my home made chocolates to work for my good friend Sukhi. She brought them home to share with her family. Later that evening, I received a FaceBook message from her.

Her family LOVED the chocolates, and especially enjoyed the white chocolate Santa. She added that my confections were "the bomb".

FYI-- that is a VERY good thing.

She had asked me if I would visit her home, and give both her and her daughter a lesson in making chocolate. I said yes, but honestly, I didn't think she was serious. She came back a week later and said that another one of our co-workers -- Angie was coming to visit, and if she would join us.

So, this Wednesday, I will be driving to Brampton to conduct a chocolate making workshop.

Isn't life funny? Not ha ha funny.

Exactly two weeks ago, I was getting excited about learning how to make chocolate. Look at me now. I will be giving an instructional course on how to make chocolate.

Tomorrow, I take on the world!

Ok-- getting overly excited. Calm down Dee... Calm down.

What will THEY need:
-glass measuring 2 cup (microwave safe)
-two small glass or ceramic bowls / cups
-a few medium sized spoons for mixing
-a small bag of almonds and
-an apron
-wax parchment paper
-a sealed container to hoard their chocolate sweets

The supplies / ingredients that I will BRING for them will be
-three colours of powdered food dye
-600 g of Merckens White
-600 g of Merckens Cocoa Lite
-decorator paint brush
-cotton gloves
-small cake box
-sleigh mould, Christmas mould, and a heart mould (for Valentines Day)

I will be picking up the majority of these suppiles at Scoop 'N Weigh Foods Limited.

Chocolate Christmas Candy

I have a potluck at work next week and I have decided to make chocolate treats. There are 32 people in my department, so I decided to economize using Merckens Chocolate melting wafers.
I purchased molds in various Christmas themes. Santa, JOY, Drummer Boy and a Snowman. I bought Merckens Milk Cocoa Lite and Merckens WHITE. I also bought powdered food dye to add colour to my treats.

Merckens candy wafers are very easy to use and do not require tempering. Merckens chocolate wafers are by far the best tasting wafers. They do not have a waxy taste to them. I half way filled a small glass containers with the Merckens white. I added a bit of powdered food dye to each container. One red, one yellow, and one green. I heated up the red container in my microwave oven for 1 minute. Using a spoon I mixed the red wafer, until it became creamy. Using a fine paint brush, I painted various parts of my mold. For example, red on Santa's hat, or red on the snowman's mittens. Once finished with that colour, I melted the yellow wafers and painted, and them moved on to the green. Once my chocolate molds were painted, I filled larger glass containers with the chocolate wafers. One with the Merckens White, and the other with the milk cocoa.
I melted the white first for a minute and a half. And stirred vigorously.
Using a spoon, I filled some of my molds 3/4 full. I followed the same process with the Merckens Cocoa. I filled the balance of my molds the same way. (each mold sheet, has about 12 molds). I tapped the sheet a bit, so the melted chocolate would spread, filling the smallest parts of the molds. I then placed my molds in the refrigerator for about two hours.

You know your chocolate is ready to be popped from their molds when the color of the chocolate has gone from shiney to matte. I tapped my chocolate on to wax paper. and voila!