Adelaide Chocolate School: Lisa takes a lesson and samples the results of her work in the Adelaide City region of South Australia
There's a new place in town where you can live out your Willy Wonka like chocolate fantasies. The Adelaide Chocolate School is the dream of self-confessed chocoholic, Anna Hofmeyer who's set out to create somewhere where people can indulge their passion, learn about chocolate and most of all have fun.
Anna Hofmeyer, Adelaide Chocolate School: "Chocolate has everything going for it. It's the texture, it's the flavour, and it's the uses for it. When you are kids growing up it's such a special treat to get a chocolate and it sort of grows with you and the appreciation grows with you so everyone really gets a great deal of fun out of it."
There's nothing formal about the Adelaide Chocolate School - that's because the staff, like professional cake decorator, Belinda are chocoholics too. Belinda teaches different techniques of cake decorating from making your own molded shapes to hand-cut shards. The options are only limited by your imagination… and your patience.
Anna Hofmeyer: "We've got a number of courses - we've got the basic chocolate making all the way through to tempering, Belgium truffle making, modeling clay creations, cake decorating - you name it we've got it if it's using chocolate."
That includes high-end classes from professional Chocolatier, Karel Vandersteegen. Born and trained in Belgium - the home of the world's finest chocolate, Karel is certainly well qualified to teach the finer points of chocolate handling.
Karel Vandersteegen, Chocolatier: "I always had a passion for chocolate and I always had a passion for fine foods and I wanted to do something with that so I did a chocolate making course and it was a two year course and that made me a certified chocolatier."
We watched as Karel carefully heated the chocolate to 45 degrees to ensure all the crystals are melted and then tempered the chocolate by cooling it on a slab of cold granite.
Karel Vandersteegen, Chocolatier: "If we don't temper our chocolate we will not have a good end result. We will not have a shiny, glossy chocolate and the snap of your chocolate will not be as nice and the mouth feeling of the chocolate will actually be really grainy."
It's a fascinating process and one Karel takes great delight in sharing and one of the best things about this chocolate school is everything you make… you get to eat or take home.
Courses range in price from $59 through to $150 and are open to kids, adults, corporate group end even hen's nights. You'll find the school upstairs at 96 Gawler Place in the city. Contact Anna on 8336 2211.
Adelaide Chocolate School
Level 1, 96 Gawler Place
Adelaide
Ph 8336 2211Published 12th September 2010
