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Lime event review
Easter Chocolate Festival
Words: Havana Blanche
As a self-proclaimed chocolate connoisseur, I welcomed the return of the Chocolate Festival to the Southbank Centre Square this Easter with open arms (and mouth!). The festival is now in its second year and takes place twice a year at the Southbank; it began in Easter 2009 and followed up with a Christmas Chocolate Festival the same year.
The handmade, artistic displays of chocolate sculptures, and the names and varieties sound straight out of Willy Wonky’s Chocolate Factory. Savoury and sweet collide in truffles, pancakes, bars, bonbons and of course cakes.
These lead many attendees, to wrongly believe this is a festival to celebrate and promote chocolate and the Cacao Bean. However, look a little closer and you will see the fine workmanship that went into the Easter Bunnies and eggs.
The delight the stall owner takes in describing the cooking process and the joy the festival organisers and sponsors Valrhona have in introducing new customers to classic and new chocolatiers. This festival actually celebrates the people behind chocolate.
Most of us have only begun to consider the process behind chocolate due to the public awareness of Fair Trade industries. This festival highlights the people behind all stages of the process. True, the people who work on the plantations are still face-less masses but the chocolatiers and pastry chefs know which country their beans were grown in and what efforts they are making to secure sustainability for the workers and their families. At this festival you get a sense that what is important are the people behind the bar or egg, not the chocolate product itself. My tongue is the end of the line for the long chocolate making process.
Saying that, you cannot help but experience an explosion of your taste buds at stalls such as Damian Allsop cH2Ocolates, who have created chocolates which change flavour at least three times in your mouth! Damian’s stall is happy to describe and show you new techniques and ways to make mind-blowing chocolates, all without butter or cream. Or you can visit the Master Pastry chef’s who will be demonstrating throughout the weekend, some of the many recipes you could make in your home with chocolate.
With so much to see and do, it is the perfect weekend outing for the whole family. After tasting and smelling the aroma of chocolate all morning, I am incredibly happy. Not just because I have tasted some of the smoothest, richest, chocolate the world has to offer, but because I now appreciate all the people who worked so hard to ensure my taste buds received the treat of a lifetime.
Related links
The Chocolate Festival official website
Lime’s listings information on The March 2010 Chocolate Festival
Easter Chocolate Festival
Words: Havana Blanche
As a self-proclaimed chocolate connoisseur, I welcomed the return of the Chocolate Festival to the Southbank Centre Square this Easter with open arms (and mouth!). The festival is now in its second year and takes place twice a year at the Southbank; it began in Easter 2009 and followed up with a Christmas Chocolate Festival the same year.The handmade, artistic displays of chocolate sculptures, and the names and varieties sound straight out of Willy Wonky’s Chocolate Factory. Savoury and sweet collide in truffles, pancakes, bars, bonbons and of course cakes.
These lead many attendees, to wrongly believe this is a festival to celebrate and promote chocolate and the Cacao Bean. However, look a little closer and you will see the fine workmanship that went into the Easter Bunnies and eggs.
The delight the stall owner takes in describing the cooking process and the joy the festival organisers and sponsors Valrhona have in introducing new customers to classic and new chocolatiers. This festival actually celebrates the people behind chocolate.
Most of us have only begun to consider the process behind chocolate due to the public awareness of Fair Trade industries. This festival highlights the people behind all stages of the process. True, the people who work on the plantations are still face-less masses but the chocolatiers and pastry chefs know which country their beans were grown in and what efforts they are making to secure sustainability for the workers and their families. At this festival you get a sense that what is important are the people behind the bar or egg, not the chocolate product itself. My tongue is the end of the line for the long chocolate making process.
Saying that, you cannot help but experience an explosion of your taste buds at stalls such as Damian Allsop cH2Ocolates, who have created chocolates which change flavour at least three times in your mouth! Damian’s stall is happy to describe and show you new techniques and ways to make mind-blowing chocolates, all without butter or cream. Or you can visit the Master Pastry chef’s who will be demonstrating throughout the weekend, some of the many recipes you could make in your home with chocolate.
With so much to see and do, it is the perfect weekend outing for the whole family. After tasting and smelling the aroma of chocolate all morning, I am incredibly happy. Not just because I have tasted some of the smoothest, richest, chocolate the world has to offer, but because I now appreciate all the people who worked so hard to ensure my taste buds received the treat of a lifetime.
Related links
The Chocolate Festival official website
Lime’s listings information on The March 2010 Chocolate Festival