Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Dunedin goes bonkers for chocolate

Dunedinites have been celebrating their love of chocolate for over 10 years, dedicating an annual carnival to the sweet treat.

But organisers have added a few surprises to this year's programme, including a house that's definitely good enough to eat.

The chocolate house is one of the features of Dunedin's Chocolate Carnival, beginning this weekend.

A team from Otago Polytech had the challenge of building a life-size house and painting it with 90 litres of melted chocolate.

"Quite difficult to keep it warm enough to be able to make it spread easily," says chocolate carpenter Graham Burgess.

"But yeah, we had a lot of fun. Students kept an eye on things as well and were quite keen to taste bits and pieces as we went along."

The team's also been designing a new machine to release the 25,000 giant Jaffas for their annual race down the world's steepest street.

But the icing on the cake will be the chocolate creations of English food sculptor Prudence Staite. Bored of working with stone while doing an art degree at university, she turned to chocolate.

"I've always been obsessed with food, and always obsessed with art, so pretty much I fused that together at the age of two," says Staite.

She's been working in the Cadbury factory this week making chocolate sculptures and decorations to go in and around the chocolate house - everything from an edible fireplace to chocolate cushions.

"A lot of people find it quite difficult working with chocolate, but you know I've had like 20 years of experience trying to figure it out, and I think hopefully I've got there now."

She's even injecting a bit of Kiwiana into her artwork, creating paintings of famous New Zealand faces that will be hung inside the chocolate house.

Staite has over 300kg of chocolate to use for her creations, and every single piece is edible.

The public can get a taste of her abilities during live sculpting sessions next week, and they'll be able to walk through the chocolate paradise once the house and its sweet decorations are installed in a Dunedin mall this weekend.


Article posted by Spencer Samaroo, Managing Director, Moo-Lolly-Bar
The best online chocolate, lolly and confectionery store on the web!

If you like what you have read check out our updates on Facebook and Twitter.

Source and Photo: 3 News


No comments: