Create your own confections at Beach chocolate shop

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ON VALENTINE’S DAY, chocolate is most everyone’s MVP.

If you shy away from the frilly boxes of mystery candy, you can have a hand in creating your own confections with a Sweet Night Out – or Sweet Day Out – at Schakolad Chocolate Factory. Aside from its retail offerings, the Virginia Beach store also hosts the private parties – hands-on tours that include mounds of milk chocolate, streams of white chocolate and dark chocolate paste.

    On a recent Thursday evening,  a group from Wachovia Securities’ Caldwell Group and Schanck Group gathered at the factory. Instead of taking their clients out to dinner or a ball game, the financial advisers had planned an evening of chocolate. When shop owner Edgar Schaked closed the blinds at the store windows at 7:15 p.m., it was time for the two-hour private party to begin.

    And what a start.

    Streams of milk chocolate cascaded over a three-tier fountain. The steady flow was interrupted over and over again as partygoers held out plump strawberries. In seconds, the bright red fruits were enveloped in chocolate. The combination was perfect for pairing with the drink of the evening – Courtney Benham Cabernet Sauvignon.

    Schaked gathered his group for a little background.

    “Everyone pull up a chair. Stand if you like. It’s time to learn about the history of chocolate,” he said.

    The visitors moved closer to the television to watch a 15-minute video examining chocolate from the cocoa trees to the store shelves. According to the video, cacao trees only grow 20 degrees north and south of the equator. In the 1500s, the Aztecs used cocoa beans for currency.

    Back to the fun. As the video credits rolled, Schaked escorted his guests behind the store’s counter and gave each a plastic glove.

    “We are going to dip marshmallows,” he announced.

    The visitors gathered around a silver cylinder filled with chocolate heated to 91 degrees. Schaked stood in the center with a jumbo marshmallow between his index and middle fingers. At the flip of a switch, the milk chocolate started to spin clockwise. During the demonstration, he urged the guests to send the marshmallows “upstream” in the chocolate.

    “The bigger the marshmallow, the easier it is, but someone always loses one,” said Schaked, who can dip about 280 marshmallows in an hour. “Feel free to lick your glove.”

    Virginia Beach client Rebecca Howard, held up her hand, offering a taste of her chocolate-covered finger to her husband, Ray Bossola. He paused for a moment, smiled and nodded. “Hmm. That’s good,” he said. “Licking the gloves is the best part.”

    Schaked soon broke out heart-shaped molds for a quick lollipop lesson where each guest used a spatula to fill a mold with heated chocolate.

    At Schaked’s direction, the chocolate tourists divided into four groups. Their task: to turn pre-made pieces of chocolate into an edible house. (Think gingerbread house, but with chocolate.) No nails needed – the liquid dark chocolate holds the walls together.

    “There will be an earthquake test,” Schaked warned. “Make sure your house doesn’t break.”

    These building materials were meant to be eaten and in some cases, much of the sweet liquid didn’t make it to the construction site.

    “Have some of this,” Howard said as she pushed a funnel of dark chocolate at her husband. He paused, sampled and said, “This is really, really good.”

    Three of the four houses, including Howard and Bossola’s house, held up when Schaked shook them and dropped them on the table in the earthquake test. The broken one, though, was the most popular. A demolished house is perfect for eating.

    With the houses out of the way, Schaked filled the table with candy bars. The visitors were to write out their names in white chocolate on the dark chocolate rectangles.

    The guests looked skeptical. “It’s easy. It really is. You’re just making shapes, that’s all. Just lines and circles. There’s white paper on the table. Practice on the paper first. When it looks good, pick a bar,” Schaked said.

    When class ended and the others packed their chocolates and a selection of truffles from the shop’s candy counter to take home, Hillery Schanck lingered near the work tables eating the white chocolate practice names from the paper. Laughter erupted – then the others followed her lead.

    Schaked looked on and smiled. “I eat about a half a pound of chocolate a day. Chocolate makes you feel good. It turns adults into children. Everyone says it’s a sugar rush. It’s not. The excitement isn’t in the sugar. It’s in the event. It’s all in the chocolate.”

DeAnne M. Bradley, (757) 222-3897 deanne.bradley@link757.com