Laughing Gull Chocolates — Local services in City of Rochester

This is a review for truffle making class. Overall this was an ok class. I went in thinking I would learn a lot about how to make truffles (technical aspects, troubleshooting etc) but it turned out to be more of a lecture-style on the history of chocolate. The lecture part lasted approx 45 minutes and making chocolate The last 15 min. It was slightly uncomfortable listening to the lecture--- the owner is knowledgeable about the history of chocolate -- but I think bringing in the political aspect is a bit much for an hour long class and she ended up glossing over an obviously complicated subject matter. She briefly touched on chocolate history in Latin America and mentioned Europeans coming to America in order to "proselytize" and also mentioned chocolate slavery in Western Africa. However, she spent most of the time talking about her honeymoon is SE Asia. I think with some tweaks the class could be a lot better - 1) shorten the lecture aspect to fifteen min tops (or let the customers be doing things like sampling the chocolates or rolling truffles WHILE we learn about a LIMITED history 2) talk more about the technicality of truffles (the only thing I learned was that you mix cream with chocolate to make ganache -- not the ratio or temperature or how to mix in flavors or how to temper chocolate) 3) consider investing in better looking tables / chairs / bowls (the bowls with chocolate were an eclectic mix of bad looking plastic Tupperware) 4) save the part about the honeymoon for a friend's night not for customers 5) have ganache already made so we don't have to wait 45 min for it to be frozen and ready (after they told us it should be refrigerated but they were taking a short cut by putting it in freezer). In an ideal class it would be great for each customer to be hands on with making the ganache so we can see and feel how it should look. The class should be focused on makingtruffles not history. This could be a good class it just needs some work first before I would consider paying forty...

I’ll start with how all the ladies that work there are super sweet, but I did not have a good time at the truffle making class. I felt like I was taking a college class, 90% of the workshop is them talking on and on about the history about chocolate. Some of it was cool, but to sit there for an hour listening to it was terribly boring. It was cool to learn how to actually make it like one part chocolate and one part heavy cream or whatever, but I truly think they should just have it ready and already made for the class. I was also very disappointed that it was ALL dark chocolate, which I don’t like. And the worst part is you don’t get to finish the truffle it’s only the filling in the middle. So I basically paid $40 for 6 unfinished truffles. She explained that the reason why is because it takes too long to make. Which I understand, but again they should have it ready and already premade for the class. And if infact they can’t do that then they should give the class gift bags of fully made truffles from their display cabinet. And the last thing that annoyed me is one of the people in the class was allergic to dairy so they made him a special batch just for him, so this kid got to make 20 truffles while the rest of us made 5-6. It is an hour and a half that could truly be done in 30-45 minutes if they were better prepared. I don’t recommend...

After stopping by Laughing Gull Chocolate with my kids and tasting the wonderful hot chocolate and yummy truffles, I decided to do one of the chocolate making workshops with all of my co-workers at Laughing Gull Chocolate’s new location on East Main Street. It was awesome! Lindsay is so passionate about chocolate and while we were making delicious truffles she taught us about where chocolate comes from, how it is made, some history of chocolate and even about the morality of chocolate. We learned about fair and direct trade chocolate, got to taste chocolate in many different forms, see beautiful photos of Cacoa trees and even play with a Cacao pod full of seeds (cocoa beans), and made lots of heavenly truffles that we could take home to share with our families (or just eat all ourselves) We all had a great time and such a fun night. This was a great opportunity to do and learn something different and I would highly recommend taking the classes (or just stopping by for a treat.)

UPDATE: They also host lots of baby/toddler meetups which are awesome if you have a young one at home and now serve...