Sunday, April 3, 2016

Chocolate Truffle Making with Farfetch

Photo courtesy of Farfetch

When a company called Farfetch invited me to a chocolate making evening I assumed they were a confectionery company, or perhaps one that ran different 'experience days' for hen nights and parties. So I was a bit surprised to find out that Farfetch is a luxury designer fashion retailer with an interesting USP - they bring together over 400 fashion boutiques from around the world onto one website, but rather than hold any stock, when you order your items are delivered directly from the boutique.
 
Fashionistas obviously do eat chocolate because they invited me and a group of other food bloggers and lifestyle bloggers to a chocolate truffle making lesson in their beautiful offices. I've made truffles several times before and even went to the Chocolate Hotel in Bournemouth for a chocolate weekend so I pretty much knew what I was doing but it was still a fun experience.

 
The lesson was taken by Lisa Marley of the Cocoa Box, who was a great tutor. She explained how chocolate is made and got us to taste different pieces before we sat down to the task of truffle making while drinking amazing chocolate martinis.


Photo courtesy of Farfetch




I was paired up with Vicky from Being Tilly's Mummy (which was funny as my cat - my own little baby - is called Tilly) and we decided to flavour our chocolate truffles with alcohol (I think it was brandy), the other option being mint which I don't like.

 
 
We added cream to chocolate that had already been melted and found that even after just a minute of stirring, the mixture had already become very thick and stiff. We spooned it into large piping bags - this is much easier to do in pairs - and piped it out into thick lines which made some people giggle!



We were advised to cut the lines into pieces and roll each piece between our fingertips to make a ball, rather than rolling in the palms of our hands as this would melt the chocolate. I found that I didn't need to roll it at all and instead could just shape it into a ball by pressing gently.


We made quite a lot of mess!


We decorated our truffles in different ways, dipping into melted chocolate, or rolling in cocoa powder, chocolate vermicelli or raspberry flavour sprinkles. The Cocoa Box provided us with a selection of bags and boxes to take our truffles home in, just in time for Easter!


I'm sharing these truffles with Alphabakes, the blog challenge I co-host with Ros of The More Than Occasional Baker, as the letter I have chosen this month is T.



Thanks to Farfetch for inviting me to the event