Chocolate Overload!

My first cooking class... Heaven! Why? Because it's the Ultimate Chocolate Treats course!

Ultimate Chocolate Treats I

I love chocolate! Our house never runs out of chocolates... May they be chocolate drinks, chocolate ice cream, or chocolate candies (most of the time, all of the above). So when I saw the opportunity to attend a demo class with chocolate as their main ingredients, I told myself I had to enroll no matter what!

Outside Shermay's Cooking School

Sign on the way up

The class was at 3pm, but we were advised to arrive early so we can pick our seats and have some drinks/refreshments before the class starts. Choice of drinks were ice cold water, brewed coffee, hot water, and iced tea. I only had the iced tea and I love it. It was Gryphon Tea Company's Lemon Ginger Mint tea... very refreshing!

So anyway, since I want to get a nice seat, and not seat at the back of the room, I left early,around 1:15. I arrived just in time, 2:45 and I got a seat on the third row.

Chef Joycelyn Shu started 3pm sharp. Chef Shermay Lee, the owner of Shermay's Cooking School was also there.

The recipes she demonstrated were: Creme Chocolat, Ultra Fudgy Brownies, Heirloom Classic Chocolate Chip Cookies, Chocolate Peanut Butter Squares (with samples passed around...yummy!!!), and last was Black Forest Trifle (using the Creme Chocolat made).

While the class was ongoing, they passed around Chocolate Peanut Butter Squares for the class to try. Omygosh! speechless! It has that perfect sweetness, perfect texture, perfect flavor! They also passed around Black Forest Trifle.... heaven!!! It has just the right amount of alcohol and cherry flavor... not overpowering the chocolate.

Other than the chocolate peanut butter squares and black forest trifles given during the class, each student also took home a chocolate chip cookie and a chocolate brownie. The chocolate chip was so chewy and yummy, one piece was not enough! The chocolate brownie was so soft and chocolatey... perfect!

Ultra Fudgy Brownies

Heirloom Classic Chocolate Chip Cookies & Chocolate Peanut Butter Squares

Black Forest Trifle

That's not all they gave away... We also were given a pack of all-purpose flour and a pack of cake flour! Thanks to Prima for that! (damn! wrong time to not have an oven!) :)

The chocolates used for all the recipes were Valrhona. For the brownies, creme chocolat and the chocolate peanut butter squares, Chef Joycelyn used Valrhona Equatoriale Noire 55% Dark Chocolate. For the cookies, Valrhona Perles were used.

The Ultimate Chocolate Treats course is divided into two series. The second one, Ultimate Chocolate Treats II will start in April.

Visit Shermay's Cooking School website for more info about Shermay's Cooking School.
Visit Chef Joycelyn's blog for more info about the demo class.