Chocoholics Anonymous...

Last weekend I went down to Cardiff to see one of my old friends (she's not actually old, but I have known her since we were 4-5 years old so officially she's my oldest friend) As she's down in Wales and I'm in London, we don't actually get to see each other that often and we decided we would have an early Christmas. And what was my Christmas present? A chocolate making course! What a fabulous idea!

So on Sunday we went off to Blaenavon, about an hour out of Cardiff for our 3 hour chocolate making course. First of all, the setting was gorgeous (see tomorrow's Silent Sunday for a photo of the view from outside the chocolate shop) with steep cobbled streets and stunning views of the mountains around. We sent my friend's other half off to climb a mountain while we went inside the lovely Chocs Away.

Our class was run by Pam, an ex-teacher who has been doing chocolate courses there for the past 5 years. She runs Chocs Away with her husband John and they specialise in courses. They cater for hen parties, children's chocolate workshops, courses in the shop and even make chocolates for wedding favours and special events. You can go on to their website here: http://www.chocsawayparty.co.uk

Over the next few hours we were introduced to the world of chocolate: making chocolates in a mould, enrobing vanilla and strawberry creams, making our own truffles, making chocolate ganache and finally filling cases with orange chocolate, rasperry chocolate and lemon chocolate. MMMMMMMMM!!!!

We left having eaten LOADS of chocolate ourselves, with some gorgeous gift boxes of chocolates to either eat ourselves or give away. These are the ones that I took with me - I'm afraid I was taking photos from my phone so they aren't the world's greatest, but still. They look impressive, no?

What a great day I had on Sunday. I came back to London wishing I lived closer to Wales so that I could take advantage of this lovely little place more often - great for gift experience ideas methinks!