Chocolate Workshops

[Lior]

It seems that where I live every chocolatier, whether amateur or professional gives all sorts of workshops and that is where the money is. There are kid workshops which would be at a birthday party (argh!) adult ones for groups of upto 25... and they usually run for anywhere from 1 1/2 hours to 5 hours (decided in advance of course) I think most people make a min of about 500$ to 700$ a workshop.

Now, I do not really like the idea, but there is a demand. Is it like this for you? What do you do if it is? What do you teach or have them make?

I did a few. One was abirthday party for a man turning 50. His whole extended family participated (21 people, all ages- kids too!!) I tempered milk and dark and explained all about it while tempering. Then they made lollies. They also rolled pre-prepared ganache into balls and dipped into chocolate and decorated, and we also made two trays of molded bonbons. I had prepared 2 trays beforehand, but had them make new shells just for learning reasons. And of course we made the ganache for the shells, and closed them. At the end everyone packaged their goods. It all took a good 3 hours.

It was a lot of work before and after... Intense!

[tammylc]

I do truffle-making workshops for groups of 4-8. They're totally hands on - make ganache, temper chocolate, dip and decorate prepared centers. They leave with 24 finished pieces, and a bit of ganache to do something with the next day. I charge $55/person. They usually last about 90 minutes to 2 hours, but there's a few hours of prep time (and material cost) in making the centers, etc.

I don't do a lot of them, maybe twice a year, although I wouldn't mind doing more - as you say, the profit margin is pretty good!

[Kerry Beal]

I enjoy doing classes and workshops. The money seems to vary depending on the venue - having your own space for enough people to make it profitable would be great. I had one class cancelled at one of the places that I teach, so I invited the two people over to the house for the same class. They took home everything we made - I think I lost money on that one.

For a truffle class - I usually show how to make the ganache, forming the truffles, tempering. I also give a little molding demo (in hopes they will come back for a molding class) using the same ganache we've made for the truffles. Bark with the left overs.

I love it when the classes are small and I can get as much hands on for them as possible - this last weekend I had a class at one of the posh grocery stores that has a teaching room - only 5 people. It was quite amusing to watch them dip strawberries. Because of the lay out of the room, they would stand in line in front of the teaching area, pick up a berry, dip it, lay it down - then run around the room to the back of the line to wait to dip the next berry.

My classes generally run 3 hours. That seems to be about the right amount of time to cover one subject with a few twists. I'm sure it could be done in half the time if the chocolate didn't need to be tempered.

No desire to do birthday parties for kids! In groups I don't think they would appreciate the finer points of tempering - so it would have to be all about making gummy worm pizzas and stuff.

[Lior]

Yes place/space is an issue. I can't have more than 2-3 people at my chocolate lab. SO usually it is at someone else's house- if they have space! I also enjoy small groups much much more. My first workshop was much longer than planned and they also took home whatever they made and I am sure I lost money!!!

I love the strawberry story-lol!!

If I had space 5-8 people sounds perfect. I must say that having a whole family, with grandparents, siblings, husbands/wives and kids and even boy or girlfriends was very unifying for the family with lots of laughing,helping and etc.

[David J.]

I've taught three classes for friends and co-workers so far, two hand dipping classes and one on molding. I wasn't going for a profit so I just charged around $10 to cover the amount of chocolate I guessed they would be taking home.

In my opinion the ideal number of students is 5-8 as it allows for a good deal of hands on while also encouraging interaction between participants. Once I carried my gear to another home, and the other two I ran it at my home. The latter was definately easier.

The trickiest thing for me is having tempered chocolate ready for use at the right time. I start with a theory lecture on tempering, then move on to the practical. I started with untempered batches the first time and it took longer than I planned to get them tempered. The last time I had them perfectly tempered before everyone arrived only to find that they were nearly set up an hour later when I went to use them.

I always over estimate the amount of material I can get through. I think the theory and practice of tempering along with hand dipping or the basics of molding is about all you want to attempt. If you give enough hands on it will consume more time than you think and you will get enough questions to fill the class time.

[Lior]

Oh yes I know about the tempering problem! What I did at the 20+ group, which was at their garage (!):

brought with two X3210 machines-I know...

I brought them with the chocolate already in and melted. At their place I had the kids press the buttons and started the tempering process. WHile it was temoering I gave that lecture-10-15 mins max.

Then I put out two trays of ganache cut into squares, which they rolled into balls and placed neatly on a tray lined with baking paper. By this time the choc was tempered. I placed a few small bowls around the 2 tables and they did the dipping and decorating business.

Then a quick clean up and we made lollies- I handed out a few piping bags filled with chocolate andthey worked in 2's and 3's.

We made ganache (or rather I demo-ed it) for the molded pralines.

Then I demo-ed making molded shells and had 2 volunteers try also. Then I had some others pipe the ganache in.

We demolded the lollies, cleaned up again and then I demo-ed closing the molded chocolates and had 2 others close theother 2 trays.

Then everyone started packaging their goods, tiying with ribbon etc and then we demolded the pralines and continued packing it all.

So it was a lot of work before hand, shlepping things back and forth, cleaning it all up... but good money.