Chocolate Festival
Chocolate Festival – 2009
This past February marked the third year of Avalon Hills’ participation in the Cache Valley Chocolate Festival. The Chocolate Festival is a yearly event held to raise funds for Planned Parenthood. Tickets are purchased at the door allowing the buyer to sample several chocolate desserts and vote for their favorite. 50+ desserts are entered into the festival and then judged by a panel of culinary experts from around the valley. Awards are given in each category, along with a people’s choice award for the Amateur and Professional divisions and a grand prize award for the best of the competition. At the end of the evening, winning desserts are auctioned off and the proceeds given to Planned Parenthood. Both the adolescent and adult unit participated in choosing, preparing, and entering a chocolate dessert into the festival.
The adolescents decided that they wanted to make chocolate “bowls” and fill them with homemade chocolate candies. So they made the bowls by dipping small balloons in melted white and milk chocolate, then popping the balloons, so that all that remained was a chocolate shell. The girls then made home-made chocolate dipped caramels, chocolate dipped maraschino cherries, and an assortment of truffles. They filled their chocolate shells with the homemade chocolates, and named their creation “love-a-bowl.” They ended up winning first place in the teenage category. Everyone had so much fun. It is so important and fulfilling for us when we can provide positive experiences with food for our clients.
The adult clients entered a Flourless Chocolate Cake filled with Pomegranate Jelly. Several cooking classes were spent baking sheets of cake, making pomegranate jelly, and meticulously piping out little chocolate shapes to decorate the top of each sample. The dessert consisted of a layer of flourless chocolate cake, pomegranate jelly, dark chocolate ganache, chocolate mousse rosettes, and a chocolate shape. 600 samples were made over all and, we are happy to say, were gone by the end of the evening. The adults were able to attend, sampling the desserts and voting on their favorites. They were able to stay for the awards ceremony where they were able to stand up and accept their awards. The adult dessert took home the People’s choice award for the Amateur division, and also the contest-wide grand prize! They were so proud of their accomplishments and involvement. There was such a positive attitude surrounding such a difficult and anxiety provoking task.
What do you know, food CAN be fun!
