For Josh’s birthday I put together a few fun date ideas to do throughout the year as a present. One of them was the Make Your Own Chocolate class at Madre Chocolate in Chinatown. The store was really cute with a variety of samples to try of all their different chocolates.

We started in the back by tasting cacao in it’s raw form (the pulp is really sweet but the bean is bitter). Next, we went back to their garden which had cacao plants, orchids, cotton plants, and a variety of other trees and plants. After that, we went back inside to make our chocolate bars! Highly recommend this as a fun date night!

The back room where all the chocolate making magic happens!

Cacao in it’s raw form.

Cacao drying out in the garden outside.

View of the garden

Cacao

Beautiful orchids

Cotton

Loved this shot!

Mixing the cacao with all the good things like sugar!

Josh adding coffee, cinnamon, and salt to his chocolate.

My chocolate bar with almonds, coconut, and salt.

Josh’s chocolate bar

They put the chocolate on this vibrating pan to distribute it evenly in the mold.

Getting to taste six different types of their chocolate. All were amazing!

White chocolate in it’s raw form (dried out).

Inside of a white chocolate pod.

All of our bars ready to be wrapped!

Josh hard at work wrapping his chocolate bar.

Finished product!