Chocolates on the Road: Bringing Sweet Experiences to Your Doorstep

Why not bring the Chocolatier home and transform your space into a chocolate-making adventure—perfect for creating delicious memories!!

Not so fun fact: Halloween is not a favourite holiday of mine. [Editor’s note: I too dislike Halloween for too many reasons that would take too long to explain BUT I do love the excitement and living ART that so many people but into their costumes or decorations at this time of year. I really admire that. JMC] Does a “Happy” Halloween have to be all about the costumes, decorations and piles of cheap candies? Or is there something better that still celebrates and creates memories without getting trapped in the “excess is best” maze? Something more about bringing people together? I love making people happy, but it seems the excitement of Halloween has been commercialized away so I started thinking about what I could do to bring it back to people - kids especially (they’re people too!) I mean, what could I do for everyone who’s feeling a little jaded at this time of year?

Maybe instead of just buying candy (or getting piles of the same cheap commercialized candies from their neighbours) people would like to have an event and make their own special and personalized chocolate treats? Being a chocolatier AND an Auntie I thought that having a little Halloween-chocolate-making-party with my niece and her friends might be something super fun to do? So about a month ago, I asked my niece Sloane if she would maybe like to have a party with some of her friends and make some Halloween themed lollipops and I think before I had even finished asking the question she had a guest list and was ready to go! She’s a very organized young lady especially in the kitchen - I’m so proud of her!!!! But there were complications…

First off, I live in Edmonton, Alberta and she lives a couple hours down the road in Red Deer, Alberta so it wasn’t just as easy as just having them all come to my commercial kitchen like I can normally do with special chocolate experiences and events.  A big reason I wanted to do a test run with her is that I’ve been getting a lot of inquiries from customers lately asking if I can do my Chocolate Making Experiences in their own home or venue. Plus, since these experiences are one of my most favourite things to do, (that is to say having people learn about how to make chocolates and guide them through a super fun experience) I decided I had better hop to it and figure out the logistics to get my show on the road. 

While it seems super easy to do, there’s actually a lot of planning and logistics that go into hosting every event so they run smoothly now with the bonus challenge of taking it on the road… Hmm, I needed to think about what the kids would like to put into or on their lollipops and how to get the goodies safely to their location. Also, I had to find different designs chocolate transfer sheets that they would find cool as well. Then there was the chocolate as we need the chocolate to be easy for them to work with (if you don’t know - tempering chocolate is a beast!).

While searching online one solution was I found these really cool diving serving tray/Bento-type carrying boxes (with removable sections) to put all the delicious ingredients in separately which adds the bonus of being able to spread them out at an event so everyone can easily see, taste, and use the different top notch ingredients I bring to an their place. Of course, I also had to figure out what specialized equipment I could take with me since it wasn’t at my commercial kitchen and good chocolate can’t just be easily melted, tempered and worked with like cheap chocolate with waxes and fillers and garbage ingredients. [Editor’s note: Are you going to tell them about your wonderful (but $1800, gulp) tool/appliance/technique Colleen???? JMC] I narrowed it down to the essentials and packed up the ingredients and was finally ready to make Halloween a memorable EVENT ~ Colleen’s Chocolates style.

The result was amazing! The kids had a lot of fun and they made the most ridiculously delightful Halloween themed lollipops amid all the giggles and glee. Of course, afterwards when I posted all the pictures, I got lots of questions from people asking, “When was the next one?!” to which I had to reply, “Sorry, next year!” I had actually put out a quick little test-post in August about the idea of Halloween themed chocolate events and nobody seemed too interested in organizing and attending one at my kitchen, but it seems that once people could see the pictures and the excitement of what it would be like in their own home then everybody wanted to have the same fun!

Oops, my bad but don’t worry I will do this exact “On the Road Chocolate Adventure” again for Halloween 2025 but until then I’m thinking maybe we’ll do other holiday events (on the road). We did have a “May the Fourth Be With You” Star Wars themed chocolate making experience and that was quite popular with both kids and their adults [Editor’s Note: Oh yeah! I got the one-legged R2D2 and a Darth Vader head as yummy leftovers!!! JMC] But it could work on the road all year long!

So, dear readers, my hope is that if I can just do a better job of helping people get an understanding about my “On The Road” experiences and just how much fun they can have on their own turf making special memories and custom chocolates they’ll come up with tonnes of ideas for parties, celebrations and festivities! DO you have any ideas for me? What would you celebrate if you could have a master chocolatier come to your home, office or venue? Leave a comment, please! I’d love you get your input!! :)

All in all it was a super fun afternoon and everybody definitely enjoyed the treats they made not just for their deliciousness and pizzazz but also for the memories they created while learning. Thanks to my niece Sloane, for inviting your friends over and of course Kim Sean, Patty, and Cal for letting us take over the kitchen.  And thanks to you, dear readers for all your support and suggestions -look for more of these classes next year. These themed Chocolate experiences really are something special that we can individualize and make just for you or someone you love, and now in your own home or space and they so dear to my heart and craft ~ I really hope you want to be a part of one!!