Friday 9 February 2018

Edible Art for Valentine's at Chez Christophe

Valetine's Day 2018 Collection | Chez Christophe

It is not often that I make my way out to Burnaby Heights, but when I do, I make sure to pop into Chez Christophe for some delectable desserts and chocolate truffles. It seems they like me as much I love their sweets because I was allowed a sneak peek at their Valentine's creations and a personal tour of their chocolate room! 

Head chocolatier Laure took some time out of her busy schedule to share with me her newest chocolate sculptures for Valentine's. There is the Playing Koi, Love Locked and my personal favourite, the Puckering Prince! The sculptures were designed to evoke imagery of love. Two of them were quite obvious, but I was stumped on the Playing Koi.

The Playing Koi is a play on words. The two fish are swimming together, but simultaneously being coy, a little shy, so the koi fish are Playing Koi.

Every single one of the koi fish are hand sculpted from modelling chocolate and then painted with a brush using coloured chocolate. The chocolate locket is made with 60% dark chocolate from Switzerland that is poured into a mould and same goes for the Puckering Prince.

Garden of Love | Chez Christophe 
The charming little frog prince had me enamoured with its adorable red pout and shiny gold crown. If you look really closely, you can spot a heart on his belly. I was curious about the fuzzy green finish of the sculpture and Laure explained that it is achieved by chilling the sculpture first. The green coloured coco butter and chocolate is then sprayed onto the cold chocolate which causes it to solidify instantly. So do not worry if you thought the puckering prince was a plushie at first, as I did. I think the chocolate sculptures are a great little gift and very reasonably priced - plus it tastes amazing too! 

A visit to Chez Christophe would not be complete without dessert and I was in luck because head pastry chef Sunny had made their two Valentine's desserts just for me! The Garden of Love was a rich milk chocolate bavaroise glazed as a bright red heart sitting atop of a passion fruit curd in a dark chocolate shell and some chocolate crumble for texture. It was really difficult to break into that beautiful dessert, so I took 100 pictures to preserve its beauty haha. 
The Velour Dessert | Chez Christophe
The second dessert was the Velour, a thick piece of red velvet sponge encased in pistachio ganache and a pistachio beet chocolate crunch. Above it was a bright white layer of lemon yogurt yuzu mousse and raspberry jam. I really loved the refreshing tang that Sunny highlighted from the yogurt and really helped balance the sweetness of the dessert. The Velour was my favourite of the two and I will most definitely be returning for another. 

Chez Christophe's Valentine's collection is available from February 9th till the 14th and pre-orders are strongly recommended. Thank you for showing me so much love Chez Christophe and letting me indulge in all your sweet creations. 

BYES
60% Switzerland Chocolate

Puckering Prince Chocolate Sculpture 
Laure with her Valentine's 2018 creation
"At the Movie" hot chocolate still available until Valentine's Day at Chez Christophe


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