Artisan Chocolate - the perfect gift

There is nothing better than receiving a hand crafted artisan gift from the one you love.  We recently had a guy come along who was looking at making chocolates for all his guests on his up and coming wedding.  How romantic.  Artisan chocolates can make a great gift any time of the year, for birthdays, fathers day or just because you can.

Hand tempered artisan chocolates

Artisan chocolates that have been hand tempered with their own infused ganache with natural ingredients such as orange or fresh mint not only have fantastic multi layers of natural flavour they can also look stunning once you have enrobed them with your tempered chocolate.

To find out about the next forthcoming artisan chocolate courses and learn to make artisan chocolates that taste and look good enough to sell.

Ganache Recipe

Orange and Mint – makes approximately 10-12 truffles
100g Milk Chocolate

30g Double Cream

10g butter
20 - 30 drops of orange oil (to taste) Mint Leaves (3-5 to taste)

•  Weigh ingredients.
•  
Finely chop the mint leaves. 
• 
Place the chocolate buttons and cream into a glass bowl and place over a pan of water (bain- 
marie) gently melt the chocolate and cream together (do not whisk or over heat)
•  
Take off heat once combined and glossy finish, at this point add the butter and stir. 

• Infuse with the finely chopped mint and add the orange extract, (to taste) 

• Pour onto a flat tray or into a carton, cover and place into a fridge to set. (between 2 - 4 
hours) 


Your ganache should be slightly firmed but able to scoop and roll into truffle shape. 
You just need to enrobe your genache and then potential decorate your chocolates to create the artisan look.

NEW Courses for 2014

Hartingtons has a fabulous new range of artisan food and cookery courses for 2014. So why not treat yourself to a course to learn a new skill?  As well as all the popular regular courses of breadmaking, cheese-making and beer brewing have a look at what's new for 2014: 

Seasonal vegetarian course
New for 2014 is a fantastic seasonal vegetarian cookery course with Wendy Swetnam who reveals  how you can produce great seasonally inspired vegetarian food simply at home.

Food smoking and preserving course
Learn all about the ancient art of food smoking and curing on this full days course with expert food smoker Turan.  On this hands on course you will learn how to construct your own cold smoker and then learn how to smoke and cure a range of foods including fish, meats, cheeses and nuts on this one day food smoking course.

Offal cookery (nose to tail cookery)
This hands on day with Chef John Parsons will introduce you to the wonderful world of nose to tail cookery.  Find out how to cook with virtually every part of the animal.  This course is about understanding the art of refined butchery techniques as well as introducing you to the tasty world of cooking with offal.

Gluten free bakery & cookery
We have had so many enquiries from people desperate to learn to cook and bake gluten free we have put on several gluten free courses.  These courses are not just for coeliacs but are for people that want to learn how to expand their baking skills as well as learning to cook authentic Indian food

Punjabi cookery course
This authentic Indian cookery course will teach you how to produce deliciously simple Punjabi food, perfectly spiced and flavoured.  It is nothing like the ubiquitous Indian takeaway food.  It is fresh, spicy and perfectly balanced as well as being healthy.  Come and learn with Kul and Kash from Coriander Garden.

Cookery Courses Derbyshire

Artisan chocolate making course

Do you love chocolate as much as me?

Find out all about our new chocolate making course with Master Chocolatier Barry Colenso.

Barry was Master Chocolatier at world renowned chocolate maker Thorntons for over 20 years.
These days Barry concentrates on creating his own artisan chocolates and passing on the love of chocolate making to a whole new generation of chocolate makers.

This is the perfect chocolate course for all chocolate lovers to find out more about the food that is chocolate and learn the skills to make their own artisan chocolates at home.

Hartingtons - Food Experience

Pork Pie Course Launches

Pork pies are a bit like Marmite. You either love them or hate them.

I was pretty much a hater until I tasted Liberty Foods pork pies at one of our food fairs. I was immediately struck by how light the pastry was and how meaty the filling tasted.

If pies could be made to taste this good.....not at all like the mass produced, blended, over processed ones sealed in a sarcophagus of endless pastry........ then I wanted to know more.

The artisan producer of these genius creations is Simon Barnes. Simon will be revealing his pork pie making secrets in this half day artisan pork pie making course exclusively at Hartingtons. You too can now find out out how to make the unique hot water crust pastry together with which cuts of meat are combined to produce the ultimate meat filling for his pork pies. Simon will not only show you how to make the Great British traditional pork pie but also how to customise the classic so that you will be able to go home and experiment with your own unique flavours.

Become an artisan pork pie maker in less than a day and see why I was transformed from a hater to a lover of the pork pie.

Cookery courses - be inspired in 2012