Name: The Art of Chocolate Making
Price: 125.0 GBP
Rating: 5 (1 reviews)

Course overview

Learn chocolate making and the art of creating handmade chocolates with the UK’s top chocolatier, Paul A Young.

Have you always wanted to learn the wonderful skill of tempering chocolate like a pro chocolatier? Are you drooling at the idea of the perfect sea salted caramel truffle? This course will cover all the skills, troubleshooting and practise that you need to be able to achieve stunning results.

Paul has a reputation as an incredibly creative flavour alchemist who often develops flavour combinations that are original, experimental, sometimes daring, yet always perfectly balanced. During this course, Paul will share the skills he has gained during his chocolate career, even letting you in on his secret recipe – his multi-award winning sea salted caramel truffle.

Paul will give you the tools you need to create beautiful handmade chocolates at home. You will be taken on a whirlwind tour of the world of chocolate, covering everything from its history right through to creating and decorating truffles at a professional standard. During this course you will cover tempering, cream and water ganaches, moulding, rolling the perfect truffles, hand enrobing, shelling, decoration techniques, bars and barks, layering and perfecting caramel. Call yourself a chocoholic? It’s time to prove it.

“I’m as in love with chocolate making as I was when I made my first truffle. I believe that handmade chocolates should be just that – hand made from beginning to end without the use of artificial flavours, stabilisers and preservatives. This allows the ingredients to really shine and gives the artist license to get creative with their flavours and ideas” – Paul A Young

You'll learn:

how to temper chocolate
making truffles and chocolate ganache
creating moulded chocolates
making fruit, alcohol and caramel fillings
presenting and packaging chocolates

You'll need:

A stainless steel plastic handled scraper (Paul uses a wallpaper scraper from a DIY store)
Palette knife
Heat gun/hairdryer
Microfibre cloth/cotton wool
Chocolate dipping tool (not essential)
A solid plastic chocolate mould (not the flexible silicone variety)

Additional and optional equipment:

Decoration transfer sheets
Baking paper for making piping bags
Acetate sheets for capping off moulded chocolates
Digital thermometer

The course includes:

4 on-demand video lessons - presented by Paul A. Young
lifetime access to the video, notes and interactive class
flexible classes - join and learn when and where you like
downloadable lesson notes
practical (optional) chocolate making assignments
access on your mobile, PC, Mac or laptop
small interactive online classroom chat online to students from around the world

Time to complete this chocolate making course:

Every student is different but in general we think the whole course will take around 14 hours 30 minutes to complete including:

Video lesson: 3 hours 30 minutes in total
Notes: at least 15 minutes per lesson
Assignment: at least 2 hours per lesson
Interactive classroom time: 15 minutes per lesson
Tutor feedback review (Expert level): 15 minutes per assignment

Ready to get started?

Just add the course to your basket above - choose the 'Expert' option for personal feedback from Paul on your handmade chocolates.

Any questions? Contact us by clicking on the orange speech symbol - we'd love to hear from you.

Watch course trailer

Lesson summary

Introduction to fine chocolate

While tempering chocolate is often looked at as a daunting task, Paul aims to demystify this process – once you have cracked this technique, the creative opportunities of chocolate are endless. During this lesson Paul will introduce you to the basics of chocolate. He will go into detail on how chocolate is made, its origins, uses and how to taste chocolate to identify the complexities of its flavor and texture. You will then be guided through the process of tempering chocolate using both the seeding and tabletop method. You will cover all the skills required to create stunning chocolate bars, and also be shown frequent mistakes made by other chocolatiers and how to rectify them.

Ganaches and Truffles

During this lesson you will learn to flavour and perfect cream and water based ganaches. You will then be led through creating hand rolled truffles, enrobing the truffles with tempered chocolate and decorating techniques.

Moulded filled chocolates

Using a polycarbonate chocolate mould, Paul will demonstrate how you can create thin chocolate shells with a stunning shiny finish. You will learn how to fill and decorate your shells, and how to cap and seal your chocolates to a professional standard. You will also be led through creating alcohol and fruit ganaches, and be let into the secret of how Paul makes his award-winning sea salted caramel filling.

Layered moulded chocolates

In this lesson, you will learn to create fruit-based reductions to layer into filled chocolates. You will be shown how you can create crunch and texture layers in moulded chocolates, and how you can decorate, present and package your chocolates. This is where you can use your own artistic creativity to push boundaries and make your chocolates your own.