Kansas City Adventures: Chip’s Chocolate Factory

Chip’s Chocolate Factory is a small chocolate store at the Crown Center that has chocolate making demonstrations.  How could we pass up an opportunity to watch the experts make fudge and try a little too?

What appears to be a braided loaf of bread on the center marble table is actually whipped peanut butter fudge, a process that took about thirty minutes. After this store’s Willy Wonka finished melting all of the sugars together, he began the demonstration by pouring the hot concoction onto the marble slabs lined with metal bars (far right side) and letting it cool for about five minutes. Did you notice the squash looking items on the far left of the picture? That is a cacao pod, where coco beans come from. I had no idea they were so big, or so yellow. Add enough sugar to those beans and you end up with milk chocolate.  A little less sugar and you have dark chocolate.  Add none at all and you get bitter baking chocolate.

After the fudge mixture had cooled a bit, he began folding it and throwing it up in the air with a giant paddle.  It was a pretty messy process, especially because he took a few opportunities to let us eager learners taste the runny sugar and then the whipped fudge. After the liquid had become fairly firm, he took a smaller spatula and worked it into the braided design and then continued to let it cool.

Clara tried her first bit of chocolate, and Emily was thrilled to play with the little tasting spoon.  Our little girls were so well behaved during the entire demonstration and even gave squeals of excitement in all the right places.

Elise and I both bought a bit of fudge and a variety of truffles to share with our working husbands, because as the people at Chip’s are probably very well aware, if you give some girls a little bit of fudge, they are probably going to want more.