Damian Allsop Chocolate Workshop

I had a fantastically fun, educational, and tasty morning at a chocolate workshop this morning, run by Damian Allsop, the producer of CH₂OCOLATES. He specialises in chocolates made with a water-based ganache, which he discovered helps to bring out and retain the flavours of the chocolate - and his creations really are superb. I'm snacking delightfully on my going-home-present, a bag full of a selection of different chocs, despite greedily stuffing my face with the stuff earlier!

But, of course I didn't just spend the whole time eating, I also learnt a lot, as did the other amateurs (chocolate-lovers) at the workshop (perhaps apart from my omniscient mum!). First, Damian gave an enticing introduction to the production of chocolate, from the picking of the fruit pod (which surprisingly grows on the trunk of the tree since it's too heavy to be hanging off the sides), to the extremely important but often overlooked fermentation, to drying, roasting, and finally manufacturing. As well as the scientific side, we saw some beautiful pictures of the cacao beans, still with their multicoloured hard outer skin, and then the smaller inside beans covered in a white pulp, followed by examples of the processes involved in refining the bean.

After the food-history lesson, it was time for the taste test. We started off with a fairly average supermarket-quality dark chocolate which we decided was a bit too bitter, had no fruity notes, and the different flavours weren't smoothly connected which made it unpleasant to eat. We moved up the scale, starting to get hints of fruits like tangerines, and arrived at Original Beans Cru Virunga, which was full of cherry flavours and a mouth-watering acidity, which lingered in the mouth.

Suitably warmed up, we watched Damian give a demo of making a chocolate mousse, before having a go ourselves. To get the consistency that would normally come from cream, we thickened the water with xanthan gum (a thickening agent), before combining this with our melted Cru Virunga, and folding this into a meringue mixture. Of course, being true professions, we didn't opt for the super-fast and easy electric whisk to transform liquid egg white into fluffy meringue. Nope, instead we used the good ol'fashioned hand one -  which I have to admit I slightly regretted after my arm almost fell off from exhaustion (despite whisking tips from the expert, Damian). We then left this to set in the fridge for a few hours, after a quick taster! Another group also added in a raspberry sauce to the milk-chocolate recipe, which gave it a great extra kick.

Damian showed us how to make liquorice financiers (cake), and fruit jellies (no gelatin, just a vegetable gelling agent and xanthan) as well, which were a great accompaniment to our mousses, and were fantastic topped off with spicy ginger crisps, and served immaculately in the shape of a cacao pod!

Finally, we tried everything, all in different combinations, to find which we enjoyed the most. I particularly liked the little liquorice cakes, topped with my chocolate mousse, and the apricot sauce! The whole session was thoroughly enjoyable, most definitely worth the 7 O'clock Saturday morning start, and 2 hour journey each way! Thank you Damian!