This weekend was the annual Spring Fever In The Garden, and we took a walk downtown before the event opened, while stalls were still being set up …
We returned later in the day to a MUCH busier event!
In addition to all the plants (and food) for sale, there’s also an annual chalk art contest ongoing – and we returned this morning to see the many finished pieces:
This afternoon I spent a fun (and delicious smelling) time at Le Petit Paris, learning about the process of tempering chocolate and using it to create chocolate bunnies! Stefan showed us the tempering process of warming the chocolate to a specific temperature (which had been done before our arrival), cooling it by a specific amount (which he does by spreading on a metal table) then heating back a little (which he does either by mixing with some not-cooled chocolate, or using a heat gun!)
We then practiced pouring chocolate into molds (trying to get the air bubbles out) – we did this twice for each mold to give a thicker chocolate layer, with fridge time in between. As well as chocolate bunny shapes we did some egg shells and cases that we used later as chocolate stands!
Here’s a lot of delicious photos:
Here also is some video showing some of the tempering process:
This time of year we get hot afternoons and cool overnights, triggering a lot of mist in the early morning. These pics are from my walk along the West Orange Trail this morning:
These photos were from a couple days ago, down at Apopka Lake / Newton Park:
M&I / GBMINI 