Shortly before my 28th birthday I decided that I wanted to establish a regular experience for my birthday because birthday parties in adulthood just don’t offer the same enthusiasm as pre-drinking age birthdays.
Shards of chocolate post chopping
As a teetotaler I couldn’t care less about alcohol in my daily life and especially during celebratory times. I say this because if there is one thing I hear from other adults about partying is the need for some form of intoxicator.
That’s just not me. So, what to do? What to do.
The ideas of boardgames, movies, and other group like activities came to mind but they didn’t feel right so I kept at it until…. Chocolate!
The Inspiration?
A friend was turning 40 and invited us to his birthday party. He said that his wife had purchased a number of dark chocolate bars that she planned to cut up and put around the house for people to snack on throughout the gathering.
It was a great time and the guests ate up the food and nibbled efficiently on the dark chocolate. =)
The uniqueness of the day stood out and we left in great spirits. Chocolate was on the mind!
Too Much Chocolate?
Try this, grab 10 variations of a food/drink you like. Be sure to limit the possible differences to one or two. Next, try a small amount of each. If you’re a master taster you’ll be able to distinguish the differences. More than likely your sense of taste isn’t that refined.
Just after you start eating the final sample you hear “Which one do you like best?” Good luck with that.
In short, the party we’d attended had too much of one type of chocolate. The 65% and the 70% were each great but when sampled back to back with other dark chocolates thrown in made it difficult to distinguish what was what.
Beta Chocolate
Sample plate from the beta party
Time passed and I was considering what might be a fun excuse to bring friends together so I floated the idea of an annual chocolate get together to emma. Soon after we hosted our first Chocolate Party.
Our approach was to bring a large variation to the party. Despite our best efforts we still fell into the trappings of not enough variations with a few of the bars we’d laid out.
Enhance! Enhance! Enhance!
We asked guests to eat before attending. After all, this was not going to be a traditional party!
At our beta chocolate party a few things worked really well – flavored chocolates: strawberry, ginger, white chocolate, milk chocolates, and the closing biggie, fondue with fresh fruit.
The types of chocolates were also limited to non-common chocolates. In other words, no Nestle, Hershey, etc. There are so many chocolate makers around the world it seemed like the perfect way to try something new. =D
Throw Your Own Chocolate Party
With all of that backstory out of the way here’s what we’ve used to guide our Adult Chocolate Parties!
- Tell guests to eat a meal in advance. Your guests will feel more at ease knowing they can eat as much or as little as they want.
- Search around to find a chocolatier in your area. I’ve been lucky to have found great chocolates on the shelves at Whole Foods but the truly amazing stuff has been found at places like Lagusta’s Luscious and The Meadow. It’s worth the search!
- Expect to spend some money. Good chocolate can be pricey and you’re going to want to try too many chocolates.
- Purchase bars of chocolate. The thinner the better for cutting ease.
- Chop up the chocolate into pieces small enough that they’ll fit on a pinky finger.
- Keep the packaging and put it next to the plate/bowl. People will want to know which their favorites are so they can buy it after the party.
- Have a non-chocolate food option like chips and hummus, popcorn, bruschetta. Something salty will help balance all of the sweet.
- Water, water, and more water.
- BYOB. Remember what I mentioned about the cost of good chocolate?
- Be aware of summer melt. My birthday is in the summer and sometimes it gets HOT.
- Have fun making the day something special! It’s your day
There’s no one way to thrown a chocolate party and I’m a noob when it comes to distinguishing taste so maybe your party would completely different. What would you add to the add to the mix to enhance a chocolate party for adults?