This year has been a year of firsts for me with the business and one that really has been a proud moment was demonstrating at The Woking Food & Drink Festival. Demonstrating is a new area for me which made it extremely exciting to work and talk about my profession in front of people with beautiful chocolate to taste at the end.

The preparation needed for this sort of event took weekend of notes and practising with multiple duplicates being produced for the day itself. My demonstration was showing off my Dark Chocolate Raspberry Bonbons. This particular chocolate is a dark chocolate shell which has been sporadically painted with splatter marks all over the mould in a mix of colours; pink, white, lilac. Once I painted the mould, I filled it with tempered dark chocolate which my assistant on stage had been preparing prior to this step. I was extremely fortunate to have one of the teachers from Tante Marie Culinary Academy assisting me on stage as this is where I worked and trained for 2 years.

Next I made my ganache and flavoured it with a deep rich raspberry puree which really gave it a kick of flavour that really makes a massive difference to the end product. Usually for the stage after this I would rest them in the fridge overnight but as I was working to a 30 minute time-plan. I set that mould to the side and finished of the demonstration by capping my prepared filled shells from the night before. This process is called capping and is extremely important is can effect the shelf life of the chocolate severely.

To top it all off at the end I tapped out all the chocolates and they looked stunning and with a beautiful shine to them, I find that makes a huge difference with people. The crowd really was engaging and I felt extremely welcomed by everyone.

This truly was the proudest moment of my culinary career so far and I cant wait to see what happens in the future… bring on the chocolate!