Be a Chocolate Maker For a Day at Vollenweider
Vollenweider Chocolate Workshops
If you love chocolate, one of the best things you can do is go on a Chocolate Making Workshop. Just before Christmas we visited the Chocol’Atelier run by Vollenweider in Winterthur and had great fun creating our very own Chocolate Bears.
After a welcome drink of hot chocolate (what else?) you’re kitted out in a Vollenweider apron – as you can imagine things can get messy when it comes to handling molten chocolate! We took our places at the long table and after a friendly explanation by the instructor we had to make the first decision – should we make a Bunny or a Santa?
We both opted for bunnies and were handed the appropriate moulds and following step by step instructions we managed to you create our very own bears out of top quality chocolate!
The next choice was to choose which colours to make the waistcoat and clothes for our bear and to learn how to use the little paper “cones” for decorating the fine details. For the decorating chocolate we could choose from green and red coloured chocolate in addition to the usual white, milk and dark.
There’s a lot of detail involved in painting the moulds by hand and decorating them and this has to be done before the main layers of chocolate are applied to the mould. Once you’ve painted in the bear’s eyes and waistcoat etc, you then have to decide whether you want dark or milk chocolate and choose the appropriate machine. Just look at this molten chocolate – it looked delicious and smelled divine!
At one stage as we were waiting for our moulds to set so we all sat down in the lounge area of the atelier and listened to a really interesting talk about the origins of chocolate and where in the world the cocoa plant is grown.
Before we knew it our moulds were ready and it was the gentle but firm action of getting our bears out of the moulds without cracking or damaging them and then placing both halves together to create our bear. Of course the final flourish was wrapping them up in one of the Vollenweider cellophane bags to give them that professional look and feel. It was a fabulous experience and we had so much fun. We also got to meet Gregor Vollenweider one of the members of the family firm.
Gregor Vollenweider
In addition to your Vollenweider apron and your handmade bear (or Santa) you also get a 10% voucher you can use for any purchases you might make on the day in the adjoining MANUFAKTURLADEN chocolate shop.
Vollenweider Chocolate Workshops
All Photos by Carmen Sirboiu
Vollenweider run regular Chocolate Workshops at both Easter and Christmas see here
Where: Vollenweider Chocolatier Confiseur, MANUFAKTURLADEN Chocol’Atelier, at the corner of St.Gallerstrasse and Palmstrasse, 8400 Winterthur
Travel Directions: From Winterthur railway station to the Vollenweider Chocol’Atelier it’s 15 minute on foot or 5 minutes on the following buses to the bus stop Pflanzschulstrasse:
Stadtbus 7 direction Chli-Hegi
Stadtbus 3 direction Oberseen
Stadtbus 5 direction Technorama
Workshop Cost: 80 CHF
Suitable for adults and children over 10 years old.
Find out more about the next Vollenweider Chocolate Workshops here.
For Google directions to Vollenweider Chocol’Atelier click here.
See the Vollenweider Venue on the Google map below:
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