Remember those elementary school field trips you took as a child? Now a local chocolatier is offering grownups and kids alike a chance to learn hands-on how candy making is done.
“As adults we don’t get to do these types of things anymore,” said Lorette Cisneros, who took Boehms’ chocolate making class with her fiancé Ziv Gonen.
Boehms Candies, Issaquah’s oldest confectionary, offers a weekly class, which teaches how to temper, dip and mold chocolate.
With Valentine’s Day only a few days away, it’s a great gift for anyone’s sweetheart. Students also walk away with a pound and a half of chocolate. For a $55 class, it practically pays for itself.
A tour through the factory shows how some chocolates run down conveyer belts for their coatings, while most truffles are hand-dipped and styled, piece by piece.
Marble slabs mark work stations, and stacks of boxes filled with imported chocolate line the walls.
Vats of chocolate heaters churn, while a student helps pour the liquid goodness into metal pots.
A candy kitchen with clean copper pots is the background for the class.
Student workstations are setup on top of a steal table otherwise used to make giant loafs of rocky road and to cool peanut brittle.
In the class, sticky gloopy chocolate, looking like Willy Wonka’s chocolate waterfall, drops down fingers onto parchment paper.
Students learn to temper chocolate with their hands, an important step for making sure the cocoa powder and cocoa butter don’t separate. If the chocolates are made before cooling, the chocolate “blooms” and white streaks from the cocoa butter appear.
Naturally, all the mixing leaves students fingers caked in rich chocolate.
“You really feel like a little kid with fingerpaints,” Cisneros said.
At home, heat the chocolate to about 95 degrees, then pour portions of it onto a plate and stir with your finger tips. As the chocolate cools, dab your lip. If the temperature feels neutral or room temperature, it’s ready to use.
For molds, once they’re filled, tap them on the counter so the air bubbles float to the top.
Quickly roll the truffles and creams in the chocolate, and let them cool on wax paper.
Clusters are the easiest. Simply mix in nuts and shape on wax paper.
Leave the confections overnight to harden, or cool them in the refrigerator.
If you make chocolate in a group, try using tin pie plates of paper plates to temper the chocolate. When the leftover chocolate cools, twist the plates and keep the extra chocolate.
The chocolate class ends with a tour of the former Julius Boehm’s apartment, designed in the traditional Swiss style. It’s filled with original artwork.
It also includes a tour of the property’s chapel, which includes replicas of Michelangelo’s Pieta and Moses statues.
Stephanie, left and student Ziv Gonen fill a pot with melted chocolate in preparation for a chocolate making class. The 2-hour course teaches visitors how to form chocolate into candies.
Celeste Gracey/Issaquah Reporter
Chocolate nut clusters are one of the several things students get to make in the chocolate making class at Boehm’s Candies.
Celeste Gracey/Issaquah Reporter
