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Learn with Paul A Young

The Art of Chocolate Making

Create beautiful handmade truffles, water ganaches, chocolate bark & more with master chocolatier Paul A Young

Course overview

While tempering chocolate is often looked at as a daunting task, Paul aims to demystify this process – once you have cracked this technique, the creative opportunities of chocolate are endless. During this lesson Paul will introduce you to the basics of chocolate. He will go into detail on how chocolate is made, its origins, uses and how to taste chocolate to identify the complexities of its flavor and texture. You will then be guided through the process of tempering chocolate using both the seeding and tabletop method. You will cover all the skills required to create stunning chocolate bars, and also be shown frequent mistakes made by other chocolatiers and how to rectify them.

Meet Paul A Young

Paul Young is a groundbreaking and inspirational chocolatier who is at the forefront of the British chocolate scene. Paul’s passion for his craft and his cutting edge creativity have won him numerous awards and led to him being ranked amongst the world’s best chocolatiers. While he made his name as a real life Willy Wonka, making delicious and original chocolates with unusual ingredients like marmite, black pudding and sweet fennel he has had a broad culinary career, previously working as head pastry chef for Marco Pierre White at Quo Vadis and Criterion. He then began to specialise in chocolate, and opened his first shop on Camden Passage in Islington in 2006 with his business partner James Cronin. Since then Paul has been creating products that have won numerous industry awards, wowed customers and earned him the reputation he has today. His first book ‘Adventures with Chocolate’ won the World’s Best Chocolate Book at the Gourmand Cookbook Awards in Paris, was shortlisted for the Andre Simon Award and included in the Independent’s Top 50 cookbooks. Paul is a regular on our television screens in the UK, with appearances including This Morning and Sunday Brunch, The Apprentice, Junior Masterchef and Paul Hollywood’s Pies and Puds and in the US on The Nate Berkus Show and The Today Show. In 2014 Paul was named Outstanding British Chocolatier by the International Chocolate Awards.

Course description

Learn chocolate making and the art of creating handmade chocolates with the UK’s top chocolatier, Paul A Young.

Have you always wanted to learn the wonderful skill of tempering chocolate like a pro chocolatier? Are you drooling at the idea of the perfect sea salted caramel truffle? This course will cover all the skills, troubleshooting and practise that you need to be able to achieve stunning results.

Paul has a reputation as an incredibly creative flavour alchemist who often develops flavour combinations that are original, experimental, sometimes daring, yet always perfectly balanced. During this course, Paul will share the skills he has gained during his chocolate career, even letting you in on his secret recipe – his multi-award winning sea salted caramel truffle.

Paul will give you the tools you need to create beautiful handmade chocolates at home. You will be taken on a whirlwind tour of the world of chocolate, covering everything from its history right through to creating and decorating truffles at a professional standard. During this course you will cover tempering, cream and water ganaches, moulding, rolling the perfect truffles, hand enrobing, shelling, decoration techniques, bars and barks, layering and perfecting caramel. Call yourself a chocoholic? It’s time to prove it.

“I’m as in love with chocolate making as I was when I made my first truffle. I believe that handmade chocolates should be just that – hand made from beginning to end without the use of artificial flavours, stabilisers and preservatives. This allows the ingredients to really shine and gives the artist license to get creative with their flavours and ideas” – Paul A YoungYou'll learn:
  • how to temper chocolate
  • making truffles and chocolate ganache
  • creating moulded chocolates
  • making fruit, alcohol and caramel fillings
  • presenting and packaging chocolates
    • You'll need:
  • A stainless steel plastic handled scraper (Paul uses a wallpaper scraper from a DIY store)
  • Palette knife
  • Heat gun/hairdryer
  • Microfibre cloth/cotton wool
  • Chocolate dipping tool (not essential)
  • A solid plastic chocolate mould (not the flexible silicone variety)

    • Additional and optional equipment:

  • Decoration transfer sheets
  • Baking paper for making piping bags
  • Acetate sheets for capping off moulded chocolates
  • Digital thermometer
    • The course includes:
  • 4 on-demand video lessons - presented by Paul A. Young
  • lifetime access to the video, notes and interactive class
  • flexible classes - join and learn when and where you like
  • downloadable lesson notes
  • practical (optional) chocolate making assignments
  • access on your mobile, PC, Mac or laptop
  • small interactive online classroom chat online to students from around the world
    • I have purchased eight courses so far and enjoyed them all. The chocolate making was life changing. I have made boxes and boxes of them." JudiTime to complete this chocolate making course:

    Every student is different but in general we think the whole course will take around 14 hours 30 minutes to complete including:

  • Video lesson: 3 hours 30 minutes in total
  • Notes: at least 15 minutes per lesson
  • Assignment: at least 2 hours per lesson
  • Interactive classroom time: 15 minutes per lesson
  • Tutor feedback review (Expert level): 15 minutes per assignment
    • Ready to get started?

    Just add the course to your basket above - choose the 'Expert' option for personal feedback from Paul on your handmade chocolates.

    Any questions? Contact us by clicking on the orange speech symbol - we'd love to hear from you.