Sooo, we have taken my Kiwi cousins and family to the De Lelie Chocolaterie in the nearby town of Delft.
After the initial shock and delight that they are here to work with chocolate themselves and not just to admire it, and after an excellent demonstration of some of the finer points of how bon bons are made, we are given large piping bags full of dark, milk and white chocolate, some bon bons to cover and decorate and free reign with a large baking sheet each in order to create our own “designs”.
Not for the first time during our visit the young guy makes it look all so easy as he pipes a little bear, ducks, letters etc. and demonstrates how to hold the bag.
In general it would be fair to say that the adults amongst us at least attempted some effort of neatness and creativity, whilst the kids quickly degenerated into squirting chocolate into messy piles on their trays… but had just as much fun in doing so as their older friends and family had in attempting precision.
Certainly we disrupted the shop rather a lot with our giggles and exclamations and the ultra-wide smiles were a good indication that this addition to their Dutch schedule has been a massive all round success. We were then given a block of chocolate each to decorate, but since most of us rather predictably decorated them also with our names, and I value our privacy, only a few of the photographs can be shown here today.
Naturally of course we did not manage to pass by the counter full of confections at the front of the shop without opening our wallets for a few additional treats for other family and friends, and left heavily weighted with our own De Lelie paper bags that contained the results of our endeavours.
So… if you know you will be in the Netherlands one day, and also happen to be in the region of Delft, and you have a minimum party of (I think it was eight persons,over the age of 7 years old) then I would highly recommend that you telephone this establishment as far as you are able in advance and ask if it’s possible to arrange your own chocolate making adventures.
It’s a sweet treat that is sure to put the biggest smile ever on your face! (interestingly too, since this is a retrospective post), whenever now we speak to my cousin and his kids, they invariably raise the topic of this activity: it became one of the biggest highlights of their three month European tour, and one of their most favourite memories in the years since!
There’s a very good reason we needed a good walk before coming here… all becomes clear as soon as you see the name of the establishment and the merchandise on display as you walk in.
This is Chocolaterie De Lelie. Our guests “ooh” and “aah” at the front counter, still completely unaware why they are really here. The marzipan fruits and vegetables create not just comments but a rush for cameras… as do the range of chocolates on display.
Himself has taken Little Mr. (then officially too young to join our group) to a play-date with his cousin at my sister in law’s in another part of Delft, so I introduce myself in Dutch to the staff of the chocolaterie and make them known of the appointment I made earlier in the month.
With a grin a young gentleman switches to English and issuing our guests with a hairnet and plastic apron each, tells them that they need to wear these if they are going to be here please. My cousin and his family look confused, they think they are here to buy chocolate… slowly it dawns on them that they are here to make stuff with chocolate and when Kiwi Daughter and my Kiwi cousins kids realise this their grins almost split their faces in two.
There’s a minimum number of people needed to make up a private group, so one of our neighbours has joined us and she’s of course been in on the surprise and is laughing at the reaction of the kids and Kiwi cousins.
We file around one of the large tables at the back of the premises and first get a demonstration of how chocolates and bon-bons are made here.
Naturally they make it look easy… there are the three vats of dark, milk and white chocolate, perfectly temperature controlled and with a wheel and fountain arrangement that keeps the chocolate moving and flowing at perfect consistency.
There are chocolate moulds in various shapes: chocolate is scooped out of the large vat, and the moulds are filled to the top, then the excess is scrapped off with a wide spatula.
The filled moulds are then placed upside down on the grate to the side of each of the chocolate vats and onto what I will “technically” call for want of a proper name a “trilling machine” because it vibrates once a button is pushed and the inside filling of the chocolate drops back through the grate and back into the vat, leaving just the bottom and outside rim of the mould coated.
The mould is placed for a minute or two onto two raised bars so that air can circulate under and inside the form and the chocolate can harden. Within minutes he picks up the form and with a firm tap against the counter, some of the perfectly formed chocolate cups fall out… all evenly uniform and waiting for their fillings.
It takes a few more taps to release the rest, but it looks easy and they are all beautiful… admiring noises are emerging from all of us by now, and our next demonstration is of some of the firmer fillings being made.
These have been made in large blocks and chilled just enough to enable easy cutting in a machine that looks like a cheese wire on steroids.
The handle is drawn down and the wire strings cut beautifully even lines of fillings which are then cut again at right angles to make perfect little rectangles ready for their dark, milk or white chocolate coats and embellishments.
Then there is a demonstration of fondant rolling and decoration… again the chocolatier makes it look so easy, and we all discover that indeed it is not when we are soon let loose on a block of our own. But enough sugary text… there are delicious photos to be devoured…
I did too much on my feet yesterday, resulting in a swollen foot, terrible night’s sleep, a ton of pain killers and instructions from my physio to keep my foot elevated, not walk on it for a day and put on ice-packs every hour.
In between counting down the hours until the next pain pill could be taken I slept a lot and accomplished nothing, but at least this evening as I type the swelling and pain have done from reducing me to tears, to manageable.
From my archive stash of photos here is a chocolate caramel slice recipe I made a few months ago: there is a similar ”slice’ biscuit (a.k.a. bar cookie) that’s a staple of New Zealand bakeries but they are unknown here in the Netherlands so I decided to have a bash at making it myself at home.
I hunted for a suitable recipe on the internet (actually in practice that meant looking at the nicest photo I could find that had a recipe attached and going “yum that’ll do” …) and set to work in the kitchen.
It’s an easy recipe that you put together in three simple stages: cook the biscuit base, add caramel mixture to the base and cook a little more, and then add the chocolate topping as the pièce de résistance on the top. The original recipe can be found here: http://www.exclusivelyfood.com.au/2006/07/chocolate-caramel-slice-recipe.html
My efforts didn’t turn out as neat and tidy as the slice in the recipe photo but no one cared a jot because it tasted brilliant. Maybe I should have left it to set overnight in the fridge: but fat chance, it was spied by my children who licked their chops in anticipation who repeated the phrase “is it ready yet?” so often that I ended up cutting slices of it to stuff in their little mouths to keep them quiet.
Needless to say their tactic worked well and it disappeared rather quickly. it’s a very sweet treat that combines chocolate and caramel and where it’s hard to have just one slice. Here are my step by step photographs to the recipe in the link above.
I’m often inspired by posts from other bloggers. One such, Nic, from http://www.cherrapeno.com/ is a friend from my days as a Recipezaar member (now Food.com) and I enjoy reading her foodie posts a lot.
Way back in February f this year, Nic posted about some chocolate covered caramel popcorn: http://www.cherrapeno.com/2011/02/wordless-wednesday-chocolate-covered.html and I got curious, so I emailed her and asked if there was a recipe, because I wanted to make it as a surprise for Kiwi Daughter’s Birthday Party.
It turns out this while you can make your own caramel to cover your popcorn, that in the United Kingdom there is a company that produces it for sale ready-popped-and-coated, so Nic was kind enough to mail me some. (Three packets in fact).
I did aspire to making the super-cute little individual balls as Nic had done in her blog post photo, but my literal pain of a foot has been giving me grief in recent months and my concentration levels have been around floor level, so I decided to take the short-cut lazy route improvise instead.
Melt some milk chocolate on a double boiler, let it cool just a little, pour in the caramel popcorn, mix well and then press the coated mass as evenly and carefully as possible into a sponge roll tin lined with greaseproof paper.
Put into the fridge to set and break into chunks for the party.
Himself is not a lover of popcorn, well, I now need to rephrase this .. he wasnot a lover of popcorn but it appears that he is responsible for the strangely frequent sounds of the fridge door opening and closing as he kept going back “for just one more piece“.
It’s also a little bewildering that whilst this is indeed sweet, it’s only a fraction as sweet as I would have expected from a caramel/chocolate combination, so it disappeared in a day and a quarter. Yep the whole tray!
Directly after making this a “certain someone” in our house decided that he needed to resume his regular runs (there had been a period of hiatus as renovations and work took over) so it didn’t take any degree of sleuthing skills to determine who helped polish it off so quickly.
I still have the last bag of caramel popcorn in the cupboard, and am delighted to know that I can make this again quickly and easily for the next Birthday party coming up soon.
When I’m back on my feet and have the energy to stand stirring caramel, I will try again with a “from scratch” recipe but in the meantime, this one is very much a hit, albeit a very decadent one indeed. Many Thanks indeed Nic for the popcorn, ( Kiwi Daughter loves you!) and the surprise that turned out to be a very popular Birthday party treat.
We are back on the beer tasting trail. This beer caused a bit of a commotion as our tasters either loved or hated it, but that in turn generated interesting comments as glasses were raised and taste-buds put to work, as well as a lot of positive and negative face-pulling and merriment..
As usual as the non-beer drinking member of the group I’m doing the write ups of the reviews and everyone is being very accommodating as meetings are being held at our place whilst I am less mobile.
The bad news is that all the information of the bottle was in Danish (no great shock since this beer is also Danish) and our linguistic skills did not reach far enough to decipher what was on the bottle.
The good news is that I have some Danish work colleagues and one was exceeding kind to do a translation of the text (Thanks S!) that I wrote out from the bottle (which I have included below, just in case (a) you happen to speak Danish or ( b) you would like to amuse yourself by trying to try and pronounce any of it).
Apologies for any inadvertent spelling errors I may have made in the Danish text, as spell checking was step too far (writing it out was hard enough). The English translation is below the Danish text.
“BryghuSet Svaneke ‘ Choco Stout’
ufiltreret , 50 cl
Vol.Alc. 5.7%
Cat.–
Information on the bottle:
På Bornholm – Østersøens perle 0-ligger den lille købstad Svaneke med sit bryghus. Atmosfæren af klipper, bindingsværk og det åbne hav sætter sit præg på livet-og på øllet. Vi giver tid, vi holder a f de små nuancer og tænker en kende længere. Det kan smages… Choko Stout: Kraftig chokolade duft spredes når øllet skækes op og d et nøddebrune skum stå r smukt I glasset. Den sorte farve tillader røde nuancer foran en lyskilde, medens den første tå afslører en moderat fyldig Stout, der mætter knapt så meget. Fire forskellige slags malt, der I blandt chokolade malt og karamel malt, sætter sit præg og humlen er fint afstemt dertil. Drikkes snildt til desserter eller en sød eftermiddagsstund. Undergæret. Øllet er ufiltreret og kan indeholde bundfald af gær. Lagres oprejst og skæ nkes næ nsomt. Brygget og tappet på Bornholm. http://www.svanekebryghus.dk Ingredienser: Vand, bygmalt, aroma essens, humle og g ær.
Translation:
On Bornholm – called the ‘Pearl of the Östersöen’ – situated in the little village called Svaneke its’ little brew house. The atmosphere with rocks, timbered houses and the open sea influences the life ,and the beer. We give it time, we care for the small details and think further. You can taste that…
Choko Stout: A strong chocolate scent spreads out when the beer is poured up and the nut brown foam stands beautifully in the glass.
The black colour allows red shades in front of a light source, while the first sip reveals a moderate, plump Stout, which saturates less. Four different malts, of which chocolate malt and caramel malt put their stamp on the beer and the (I missed a word here, sorry)…… is made for it. Can be enjoyed with desserts or a sweet afternoon moment. Under yeasted. The beer is unfiltered and can contain precipitate of yeast. Is to be stored upright and should be poured gently. Brewed and tapped on Bornholm.
Ingredients: water, barley malt, aroma essence, ….. and yeast.
Himself: “recognise the quality …but it’s not me, (Rating=5)”
Andrew: “ I do like it because I like nice sweet things, whilst I’ve not met a chocolate stout that I don’t like, I would say that “Fuller’s” chocolate stout (UK ) is even better (Rating = 8)”
Friedel: ” I love the chocolaty taste , but it smells more chocolaty than it tastes (Rating = 9)”
Evan: “ I really like it , I like chocolate beers, this one smells great, not overpowering at all (Rating = 9)”
Tamara: “Smells like liquid nutshell, but the taste is like a coffee flavoured syrup that has gone bad (Rating = 1)”
Li: ” Tastes like coffee, … yum…filthy, put this next to chocolate cake or liquid chocolate pudding or any chocolate dessert and I would be very happy (Rating =8)“
Erik: “Chocolaty, it smells delicious and I like it, …the moon is waxing ,solid . (Rating = 7.3)”
Alicia: “ The chocolate is really good, you wouldn’t want more than one glass, a great beer to finish off an evening …(Rating = 8 )”
.. and in case you are wondering, the shape of the label is indeed the shape of the Danish Island of Bornholm and the dot in the far right corner marks where the village of Svaneke is. A very cunning idea to leave directions to your brewery!
First an apology, I meant to post this a few days ago when were still in the New Zealand travel mode…
Secondly let me tell you a story about David and Goliath …nooo, not the Biblical story but one that revolves around that principle, and thirdly, lets throw chocolate into the story.
(Now your ears pricked up and you are warming to the idea, I can tell LOL)
Remember what we did when we have jet lag, are still on a 12 hour Dutch time zone difference and our little family of four are wide awake at all hours of the New Zealand night?
That’s right, we went grocery shopping at a 24 hour supermarket close by.
A strange thing happened there too. Ok, I grant you, taking a four and eight year old grocery shopping at 3.00 am is already a bit strange… a lady, (with a uniform on and logo that showed she was clearly a shift worker) saw me standing looking at the chocolate selection, came over and said: ” I wouldn’t advise you buy the Cadbury’s love, take the Whittaker’s instead“.
Now, we looove Whittakers chocolate so I didn’t take much persuading.
Then, whilst I was putting our items though the checkout, the cashier spied the chocolate and told me that she was delighted to see that I’d chosen Whittaker’s.
The kids were starting to get to the stage of their supermarket experience that involved wanting to drag race and crash test shopping wagons, so Himself hustled them outside whilst I sorted the bill.
Since the little fidgets were waiting I couldn’t linger for an explanation. Needless to say I walked out to the carpark a little bemused and puzzled.
Jet lagged brains don’t excel in retaining information so once back at the camping I promptly forgot about it and was only reminded again when we visited my Aunt and Uncle later in the trip.
Conversation turned to foodie items that I missed when I was not in New Zealand and as a well known long standing 100% New Zealand made brand, Whittaker’s chocolate entered the conversation.
My Aunt, stopped and gasped, “ You didn’t buy Cadbury’s did you?” there was a tone in her voice, disapproving… “Noooo“, I reply, “ I bought Whittaker’s“ “Good!” she replies, very firmly.
Now she really has me wondering, I suddenly remember the supermarket incident and ask her what on earth is going on between Cadbury’s and Whittaker’s? Here’s what she tells me:
Cadbury’s is a long standing brand of chocolate in New Zealand, there is a factory in the South Island city of Dunedin.
A relatively short time ago they changed the recipe for their chocolate. They either reduced or removed the cocoa fats and substituted palm oil instead.
Now as a foodie I know that palm oil is very controversial as a food ingredient but even more so because of its environmental effects where it is grown. Deforestation, increased carbon emissions, pollution, habitat loss to endangered species are among the negatives of Palm oil.
Not only this, but the switch was made because palm oil is a cheap product and clearly it was a revenue increasing exercise. Then the straw that broke the camels back… the taste.
My Aunt reported that everyone was suddenly talking about how it didn’t taste like the chocolate they were used to before. Whittaker’s, already a popular brand but a small player, held a far smaller market share, began to benefit from the groundswell of public opinion to the changes that Cadbury’s had made.
Kiwi’s not only started talking about it, they also started doing something about it, they voted with their wallets and started buying Whittaker’s chocolate off the supermarket shelves and boycotting Cadbury’s. This happened to such a degree that the Cadbury’s factory in Dunedin was forced to close down. Cadbury’s chocolate is now imported into New Zealand from either Thailand or Australia.
It’s very clear indeed that if complete strangers are making comments to you in the supermarket, that feeling about this runs deep and people are very concerned about the Cadbury’s product.
One thing is clear to me: New Zealand is lucky to have a long standing family run business that makes a quality product to benefit from this amazing change. For once the Goliath, a “global player” has been taken down the notch and they have lost a vast market share. Worse than that, they have also lost customer goodwill, and anyone with a smidge of business sense will tell you that that is sooo much more difficult to regain.
Needless to say, Whittaker’s will not be making changes to their recipes and substituting cheaper ingredients… they know they are onto a winning formula if they leave things exactly as they are.
So, the moral of the story is: You may have a vast market share , you may appear to think that your consumers will not notice or care about your ingredient revisions, once you know they are unhappy about it, and you don’t make swift changes to rectify it, your days as their favourite are numbered.
Usually a company advertises a new recipe with words like “new” and “improved” in this case Cadbury’s appear to have instead made themselves a recipe for disaster.
( two videos by Whittaker’s)
Here’s also why people are up in arms… (video by leokimvideo)
No, this isn’t an advert for Whittaker’s, (although our waistlines can attest to that fact that it’s awsome chocolate) but it is a hopefully an advert for good business sense and not taking your customers for fools.
It doesn’t matter how solid your market position is, if you think you can do no wrong then you are very much mistaken. Consumers can chop you down to size fast … faster, in this case, than a bar of chocolate left on the dashboard of the car on a hot day (and eventually in Cadbury’s boardroom, probably just as messy).
We are in the Ganong Chocolate factory, doing the tour and learning all about chocolate making.
Don’t these look delectable?
Ha ! Gottcha, the chocolates in this photo aren’t in fact real, they are over-sized toy ones, each just a little smaller than my computer mouse in size and there are two giant ” tray’s” of these side by side.
A photo above both the “trays” showing how the real trays are packed, the game here is for two players to race each other and place their over-sized “chocolates” into the over-sized “trays” to match the photo we are given… first to complete the arrangement correctly wins! believe me it’s harder than it looks!
Here are some real chocolates, yes the fake ones are very realistic!
I think that the over-sized proportions are necessary, if they were sized realistically, many a child (and adult) would have mistakenly tried to eat them.
The Ganong factory has what is believed to be the oldest operating candy machine in the world. It is a lozenge machine that has produced lozenges since 1889 when it was installed on the third floor of this building. During a factory fire in 1903, two such machines crashed thought the floor and were badly damaged. Factory mechanics were able to salvage enough parts from the two to rebuild one machine, It us still going strong at the new Ganong plant and produces more than three million lozenges each week.
And then there are the “Chicken Bones” … err, “Chicken Bones?” for real? No… a sweet one, a candy one!
The original chicken bone was created at least 100 years ago by Baltimore native Frank Sparhawk. The exact year of it’s creation and it’s name are unknown, except that it is shaped like a chicken bone.
The chicken bone has an unsweetened dark chocolate centre, with a hardboiled sugar and cinnamon jacket. Today the chicken bone is still made the same way as it was over a century ago, only the length has changed. The Chicken Bone is the last remaining hard candy to be produced by Ganong.
This chocolate tour was a delectable stop indeed, it comes highly recommended by the Kiwidutch family and their friends! So if you are ever passing anywhere close to St Stephen in New Brunswick, Canada, be sure to allow some time to take a break here in this most delicious of places.
The children spy a playground as we travel though some small New Brunswick towns heading south… Sorry kids we are not stopping today, because we have an appointment to keep.
We want to stop somewhere famous in St. Stephens and we need to get there before the place closes for the day.. we will be cutting things a little fine as it is, so no unnecessary stopping until we get there, understand?
What are we aiming to see?
The famous Ganong Chocolate factory of course !
Phew, we arrive about an hour before closing time and the kids eyes light up when they see why we are stopping, their eyes light up even more (I hardly thought it possible but truly it IS) when they hear that in this chocolate factory and on this chocolate tour it’s free-all-you-can-eat chocolate tasting as you go!
The old factory at Ganong became too small for their present operational needs so they moved to a purpose built factory just outside town and so the original factory today houses a museum and shop… the museum gives the story of chocolate making from the cocoa bean until the finished product.
During the tour we learn that chocolate’s popularity increased in Europe during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In the early 1800′s. Dutch and British experiments led to the creation of the solid chocolate we know today and by mid-century, chocolate manufacturing had taken hold in Europe and was beginning to spread in North America.
The Brothers Ganong made their start in 1873 and interestingly, many of the future famous players in the chocolate business, including Droste, Nestle, Lowney, Hershey and Moirs appeared about the same time.
Ganong’s famous hand dippers were women living in St. Stephen and surrounding areas, and the display tells us that ” a hand-dipper usually worked from seven in the morning until six at night, Monday to Saturday, spending much of that time up to her elbows in chocolate.
Working hours increased after Labour Day, when Christmas production began, when workers returned to the factory for another three hours in the evening. The mark of an experienced hand-dipper was her ability to put a mark or swirl of chocolate on the top of each chocolate. There was a distinctive swirl for each chocolate, and at one time Ganong made 150 different types of chocolate. ” (Wow, what long hours!)
We are having an excellent time and the kids are beside themselves with that most dreadful of choices ” What kind of chocolate will I try from the sample tray next?”
Since Dutch handmade chocolates are made from the best-on-the-planet-chocolate produced by our neighbour Belgium, it can be hard to find chocolate in other countries that compares in any way favourably to what we have at home. I was disappointed with the Anne of Green Gables chocolate as it was clearly inferior , but WOW the Ganong chocolate is VERY GOOD indeed, and is up there with Europe’s finest.
This is a very welcome surprise because we have tasted the “Hershey” brand of chocolate whilst in America and to be honest I was very worried indeed that this place was going to be a Canadian equivalent of cheap mass produced lower quality chocolate. I needn’t have worried, Ganong is leagues above Hershey!
We looove learning all about chocolate here ! Let’s take a look around…
