My friend Bill drove the group (my mom, our friends Raffaela and Dick rounded out the bunch) to Perugina. When we arrived, I was excited to see that the company finally opened its bright and shiny chocolate museum and moved the school into a brand new facility next door. There are now windows from the museum into the chocolate school classroom. While we were taking our lesson, museum-goers were longingly looking in on us working with our sweet, beloved chocolate.
The class was full so the lessons are definitely popular. But they seem to only still be offered in Italian – though our instructor knew some English. We made chocolates filled with orange ganache. I made something similar the last time I was here but Bill who was on his fourth or so visit made candy eggs near Easter and chocolate hearts near Valentine’s Day.
Number one lesson of the day: After melting chocolate, you must spread and stir it on a flat service in order to expose the chocolate to air in order to thicken and cool it – otherwise you will never be able to work with it. It was fun to watch my mom at work with her chocolate and as with last time, we all received and apron, a diploma and of course, chocolates to take home.