Hello readers and welcome to my article. I hope that you are enjoying my articles each month – if you are a newcomer, every article I do is about a place to visit or toy to buy to keep your children happy if you are stuck for ideas.
This time my article is about a chocolate making experience that took place in the Leeds Markets Kirkgate Suite with the Lord Mayor of Leeds. When I arrived at the location there was a big banner introducing the chocolate making workshop with a lady checking people in. She was very polite and friendly. There were tables set up in the room with different ingredients in the middle and a bun case in each place.
After a couple of minutes the Lord Mayor and his wife the Lady Mayoress came in and greeted us all, then the session began. The master chocolatier taught us all a lots of facts about chocolate and cocoa beans, and we got to eat a bit of ‘nib’ as well as getting to look and touch the cocoa beans and pods. He told us that chocolate comes from trees called Cacao trees, and the fruit of the tree is the Cacao pod. In each pod are the cocoa beans. The pods were large and brown, and rattled when you shook them. This was the beans inside. The nib we tasted was a tiny part of the bean that is used to make into chocolate. It tasted a bit nutty, with a hint of dark chocolate! Then we got to make the chocolate with a choice of ingredients. We had to choose a few things from the middle of the table such as marshmallows, rice crispies, raisins and white chocolate buttons and place them into the bun case. Then we covered it all in melted chocolate – yummy! Our final task was to decorate the top and come up with a name for our creation. Overall, I had a great experience, I learnt a lot and of course the best bit was eating our chocolate when it had set!
This was an event organised by the Lord Mayor’s charity LOFFTY which stands for Leeds Offers Fun For the Young. The Lord Mayor thinks it is really important to give children in the City lots of chance to just have fun and enjoy being young. He says this is the best way we learn too. Even though you have missed this event, LOFFTY is often organising different events and activities for children so keep a look out. Meanwhile, the Lord Mayor recommends the many cycle tracks that have been created around the city for something fun for all the family to do. If you really want to do something involving chocolate have a look at the website www.ministryofchocolate.com to see what other events the Master Chocolatier has going on!
By Selina aged 11
