Praline courses

Praline courses

The noblest processing form of chocolate is certainly that of pralines! Noble truffles with fine hedgehog spines and beautiful shaped pralines, thinly coated cut pralines and perfectly trained mountain tops can be found in every confectionery nowadays. Boxes of various chocolates are a popular gift when visiting friends and family and everyone is happy about the sweet surprise.

So what could be even better than a box of chocolates from the confectionery? Quite clearly: homemade chocolates! With loving handwork poured, dressed, filled and decorated these chocolates really come from the heart. The fillings can be prepared and arranged according to your own taste, the shape of the chocolates is entirely your choice.

But the production of chocolates needs to be learned. While filling ready-made hollow bodies is still quite simple, conjuring up cut pralines or molding your own hollow bodies quickly becomes an art. But it is precisely this art that has fascinated us for years and brings with it many new possibilities.

Welcome to miniSchoggi

The praline courses are among our oldest and most popular courses, not only among course participants but also among course instructors.

The course leader is always a trained professional, as it is important to us to pass on sound knowledge and the valuable experience of professional confectioners, pastry chefs, food technologists and bakers. We want to avoid half-truths and purely empirical recommendations and thus show you how cakes, chocolates, breads and much more succeed in bakeries and patisseries. In addition, you will receive competent answers to your questions. In contrast to possibly unclearly formulated recipe books or instructional videos on the Internet, you have the opportunity at our courses to ask questions at any time and directly eliminate any ambiguities.

In this way, we will teach you a lot of new knowledge and show you how to make delicious and beautiful chocolates. As the perfection of the art of chocolatier, they are always popular and cause great admiration.

Our courses

With us you will find three different praline courses. here more info about our different praline courses.

Praline studio "Just for fun

In our two-hour praline course, young and old can learn to make their own chocolates. Sitting and enjoying a cozy afternoon or evening with friends, this course is perfect for that. You'll learn about different types of couvertures and get to taste some drops under professional guidance to get to know different flavors, then it's on to making the pralines and truffles. The hollow bodies are filled with fresh and seasonal fillings and refined with other ingredients. Sealed with the best Swiss couverture, the chocolates can then be decorated immediately. The truffles are additionally rolled in chocolate and sprinkles, Hüppenflocken or colored edible paper. At the end of the cozy course, the chocolates are nobly packaged and prepared for transport. In this way, the small delicacies can also be wonderfully given as gifts. Thanks to a detailed course program, you can also easily copy the creations at home.

Praline basic course

From our praline basic course you will take away delicious, self-filled pralines, fine truffles and fruity filled apricots as well as a lot of new knowledge and the recipes for your own praline creations at home. You will be initiated into the secrets of praline making by a trained confectioner. Refined with various ingredients and nobly decorated, the chocolates taste especially good! We will show you how to temper the couverture to obtain a shiny, crisp and high-quality chocolate shell. In this way, the fresh fillings are shown off to their best advantage. You can choose from seven delicious praline fillings, including, for example, a dark orange filling, a sparkling champagne filling or a melt-in-the-mouth caramel. Add crunchy hazelnuts, spicy chili threads or aromatic freeze-dried fruits to create extraordinary flavor combinations. In this four-hour course, you can let your imagination run wild!

Praline course for advanced

Create noble chocolates with a higher degree of difficulty and surprise your loved ones with the homemade treats! Our professional course leader will show you how to make varied cut pralines, how easy nougat pralines and mountain lace can be drilled and trempiert and of course in this course again various delicious fillings are tasted and filled. The hollow spheres will be sealed and finished with the typical truffle tips. Also hollow shells will not be missing. What is special is that this time you are allowed to cast your own mold pralines. The mold must be polished and brushed, then you may fill it with tempered couverture, pour and refrigerate. In this way, you will be able to create extraordinary creations that can be individually colored with cocoa butter. With a great deal of new knowledge about tempering couverture, molding pralines and stamping, you will be able to package your delicious creations in a noble way after almost four hours. Of course, you will take the exclusive praline recipes home with your own sweet treats so that you can make them again at any time. This is how you become a real home chocolatier!

History

Today, chocolateries around the world offer a wide variety of praline types and flavors. From fine truffles with a melt-in-the-mouth liqueur filling and a crunchy shell to nutty, crunchy almond rochers. New combinations are still being tried out, creative shapes are being devised, and faster production processes are being sought. Where the journey of the pralines still leads, no one can know exactly, but something can be said about the past.

History of the praline

Pralines were considered very early nuts or candied fruit dipped in caramel syrup. In the 17th century, a German chef created a sweet for his master, Duke Choiseu du Plessis-Praslin, who was in the service of Louis XIV. This was sugared almond heaps enhanced with dried fruit. At that time, chocolate was gaining popularity in noble houses throughout Europe. So the chef then came up with the idea of coating the almond heaps with a fine layer of chocolate. Pieces of marzipan dipped in chocolate were also sold as pralines a little later.

The first molded chocolates were then created in Brussels. Metal molds were filled with chocolate and then filled with nuts, dried fruit, liqueur and many other ingredients. The chocolates were then tumbled out of the mold and sealed with a small chocolate plate.

Chocolates in modern times

Even today, new processing techniques and flavor creations are still being developed. Again and again new praline molds are introduced to the market, these are no longer made of metal, but of food-safe plastic or polycarbonate. New materials and processing techniques are invented, new and exotic fillings are created.

In addition to the classic fillings with liqueur, chocolate ganache and nuts, more and more unusual ingredients and preparation methods are being added. For example, the chocolate ganache is given a further flavor note with a tea infusion or a fruit jelly provides that certain something. Pralines with spices such as cinnamon, gingerbread spice or chili are also becoming increasingly popular.

Thus, creative new compositions are created again and again, dark chocolate with chili, cinnamon truffles, black tea filling or orange-ginger pralines are just a few examples. In this way, chocolate can be combined in more versatile ways than in any other form, another great attraction when making chocolates.

Praline making techniques

The various techniques are also constantly refined and expanded, creating different shapes and types, consistencies and appearances.

Truffles and truffles

Particularly well known are, of course, round chocolates, also called truffles or truffles. Truffles are filled balls that are coated with chocolate and rolled on a trempier grid with the help of a trempier fork. This is how the many little spikes are created that give the little treats their name, because once rolled they are remotely reminiscent of truffle mushrooms. Instead of rolling the truffles on the grid, you can also coat them thinly with chocolate and roll them in coconut flakes, chocolate sprinkles or colored edible paper. Roasted and ground hazelnuts, powdered sugar or cocoa powder are also often used as a coating for the noble delicacies.

Mold chocolates

Molded chocolates come in all kinds of patterns and shapes. Casting them yourself has to be learned, because this requires a lot of knowledge and practice. This already begins with the preparation. First, the mold, whether metal, polycarbonate or food-safe plastic, must be washed and thoroughly polished. After cleaning with lukewarm water and non-caustic detergent, the mold is dried and polished. Absorbent cotton or very fine handkerchiefs are suitable for this purpose. After polishing, the praline cavities must not be touched, otherwise fingerprints will later be visible on the finished pralines. The molds are then brushed with tempered couverture, filled and poured out again. After a short cooling period, the hollow molds are filled and sealed. After the chocolate has set in the refrigerator, the mold is removed and inverted onto a clean surface. The result is perfectly formed chocolates with a melt-in-the-mouth filling.

Cut chocolates

In addition to the filled hollow bodies, there are also chocolates that are cut and then coated with chocolate. The so-called cut chocolates are usually made of a firmer ganache, marzipan, jelly or a combination thereof. For example, pistachio marzipan is rolled out, spread flat with ganache and couverture, and refrigerated. Once the ganache is firm, it can be cut into equal-sized chocolates with a knife or a cutting harp. The individual chocolates are then dipped into tempered couverture using a tamper fork and coated. Half a pistachio or a mocha bean on a coffee ganache completes the cut pralines.

Dressed chocolates

The last very well-known variant are the coated chocolates. A solid ganache is applied to a drop of couverture with the help of a nozzle and refined to taste with hazelnuts or dried fruit, for example. These are then also stamped.

Of course, there are many other varieties of chocolates. Almonds soaked in syrup and covered with chocolate, typical heaps of cornflakes or balls rolled from solid ganache are of course also included. Strictly speaking, any confectionery that is bite-sized and contains at least 25% couverture is considered a praline. Our company also started with just these little treats.

Our beginnings

We at miniSchoggi have a very special relationship with the chocolatier's art of making chocolates. At the beginning, the two business managers Rebecca Odermatt and Thomas Ramseier made personalizable chocolates. Customers were able to choose a box of chocolates and then select the chocolates to go inside to their heart's content. All the chocolates were then carefully handmade by Rebecca herself. Only after some time the first course was then organized. So at the beginning of the company are the noblest chocolate creations, the pralines. Visit us at one of our praline courses and let the sweet delicacies cast their spell on you.

Our praline courses

With one of our chocolate courses we take you on a journey into the sweet world of chocolate! Whether alone, with the family or in a group we guarantee you a lot of fun and joy in one of our chocolate courses.

Are chocolates your favorite sweet and you have always wanted to make them yourself? ou have always wanted to take a course on chocolate and strengthen your know-how in this area or even learn something new right from the start? Our different chocolate courses combine practice with theory and thus ensure instructive and at the same time sweet hours. All our chocolate courses are supervised by professional course leaders, because very good care is close to our heart.

Our chocolate courses are divided into different subcategories so that there is certainly something for everyone. In addition to the classic chocolate courses such as chocolate figurines / bars cast and praline making, we also offer chocolate specialty courses. Our favorite "praline course" is divided into several categories and they are currently the following: "Praline Atelier, Praline Course and Advanced Praline Course".

Would you like to experience a fun afternoon together as a group and make the most delicious creations in no time? Then the praline course (Pralinenatelier) "just for fun" is ideal for you! The praline workshop offers a lot of fun in just two hours, where you can fill your own pralines with delicious fillings, cover them and decorate them. The creations from this praline course will be beautifully packaged to take home at the end of the day.

Our next chocolate course "Pralinenkurs" lasts 4h and offers at a higher price in contrast to the Pralinenatelier more practice and more extensive theory. Because in addition to filling the chocolates, the participants create a filling together and learn different chocolate processing techniques. In the chocolate course "Pralinenkurs" you as a participant also get an expert introduction to the world of tempering the couverture, so that you can implement this at home. In addition to all these processing techniques, the course also teaches you how to decorate truffles and pralines creatively and professionally.

In the chocolate course "Advanced praline course" we give those who have attended our basic course an extra and provide a higher level of difficulty. In addition to the basics of praline making, our participants in this praline course are allowed to fill the truffles, seal them and cover them with couverture with the help of the tamper fork and use the truffle grid for the spiked effect. Furthermore, this praline course ensures that our participants make almond rochers, pistachio pralines, tree nut pralines, nougat & mocha pralines as well as poured mold pralines and go home with valuable tips & tricks.