I do live in one of the biggest chocolate countries in the world. So last week when I was fortunate enough to be invited to join Andy’s company for an event at Lindt & Sprüngli my introduction to Switzerland was complete. I bet most of you know the Lindt chocolate, you can buy it all over the world. We bought it occasionally during our stay in America and on the trip and our favorite is the chili flavored one.
At the factory in Kilchberg, outside of Zürich, they have a show room which is equipped with marble benches and large pots to keep the chocolate at the right temperature for further refinement. Our group of almost 30 got dressed in baking shirts, apron and hats. The show room was Christmas decorated with Disney perfect trees and golden Lindt chocolate bears.
The chocolatier started to tell us a bit about the company and chocolate but pretty soon we got into the important part of the evening, making chocolates. 🙂
We were shown how to fill champagne ganache in chocolate shells which were later sealed and decorated with powder sugar. We made 28 each and they have to be eaten within a week or so. What a pity! We then got 10 basic chocolates that we could decorate in what ever way we wanted. The chocolatier showed us some tricks and for our creations we could use gold flakes, caramelized nuts and more.
In addition to working with chocolate there were Lindt & Sprüngli chocolate available for us to eat as much as we wanted from. It did not take long until I did not feel like having any more. Such a shame!
A few hours later we went home with our handmade chocolates, slightly sick after having had way too much chocolate but with a big smile on our faces. 🙂