Learn, Taste and Create
Classes will resume after the holiday season.
Check back for updates!
What We
Offer
01
In Store Classes
Spend an evening at Pierre's chocolate shop learning how we make all those delicious chocolates you love. You will be introduced to the wonderful world of Pierre's chocolates by the owners/chocolatiers, Justin & Tom. Learn about how chocolate is sourced, our responsible methods of sourcing fair trade chocolate, and how it goes from a cacao pod to a mouth watering piece of chocolate.
You will taste different chocolate from all over the world, and operate some of the unique machinery that brings chocolate to its finished product.
Each class will end with you getting to create your own chocolate masterpiece to take home with you.
Find dates for classes and availability by clicking the link below.
02
Zoom Classes
Organize a zoom class, where we will ship chocolates to the participants and then have an interactive experience learning about the chocolate via zoom. During the event, our owner/chocolatier Justin will share the background of Pierre's, how our chocolate is sourced and an insight into the business. After the initial intro, there will be a live demo with our famous handmade ganache where you will also get the opportunity to see the unique machinery that brings the chocolate to fruition. We end with a coordinated tasting and time for comments/questions.
Recently, we have done these events with Google Finance, Spring Point Senior Living and Ursinus College to much acclaim.
Please contact us with any questions and for pricing information.
03
At your Business Facility
Spend an afternoon getting to sample Pierre's chocolates and learn about the different chocolate that we create on a daily basis.
Each class will begin with an introduction of Pierre's Chocolates and who we are, including the history of the business of chocolate, and the sourcing of ethical and fair trade chocolate. Each participant has the opportunity to taste single origin chocolates, as well as finished confections, followed by watching how ganache is formed in to a mouth watering truffle. A Q&A period will conclude the class and each guest will receive a 2 or 4 piece box of chocolate to enjoy.
Please contact us with any questions and for pricing information.
CHOCOLATE EXPLAINED
Chocolate is a product that requires complex procedures to produce. The process involves harvesting the cacao beans and manufacturing the beans into chocolate.
The beans grow in pods that are about the size of a football. The pods are harvested manually so as not to damage the trees or the flowers and pods that grow from the trunk.
The pods are collected, split open and the cacao beans removed. It is the following steps that develops the eventual taste of the finished product.
The beans are placed in heated trays or covered with leaves and left to dry in the sun.
The beans are ready to be refined into chocolate. They are roasted, outer shells removed, and then broken into small pieces called nibs. The nibs are ground under pressure into the solid mass often referred to as chocolate liquor. During this process, the fat of the cacao bean precipitates out. This is called cocoa butter.
The cacao liquor is blended with sugar, cocoa butter, and in the case of milk chocolate, milk solid. They are then heated and mixed over a lengthy period of time (called conching) to achieve a variety of chocolates.
While formulas and processing methods can vary widely between chocolate manufacturers the following descriptions generally describe the different types of chocolates.
WHITE CHOCOLATE is produced by mixing cocoa butter and sugar and sometimes milk solids. There is no chocolate liquor in white chocolate. Pure white chocolate that Pierre's uses should not be confused with most products marketed as white chocolate, but are in fact and must be labeled as such, chocolate flavored candy.
DARK CHOCOLATE is produced by mixing the chocolate mass (cacao liquor) with sugar and in some recipes cocoa butter. The higher the percentage of chocolate mass the more bitter the chocolate. Bittersweet chocolate is usually made with 65% to 91% cacao mass. Semisweet chocolate usually contains between 48% to 64% cacao mass and sweet dark chocolate contains 38% to 47% cacao mass.
MILK CHOCOLATE is produced by mixing the chocolate mass with sugar and milk solids and in some recipes cocoa butter.
