I’m always very sceptical when I’m asked to review items like the Mini Delices 5in1 Chocolate Workshop. In my experience child craft toys like this often do not work well, are cheaply made and are far too difficult for the children in question to use. Resulting in tears and frustration for both the parent and the child! I’m glad to say in that this is not the case with the Mini Delices 5in1 chocolate workshop.
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If you like this you may also be interested in my reviews of The Original Mr Frosty The Ice Crunchy Maker, Nadiya’s Deluxe Kids Baking Set (blueBearwood), and Tybo XL Ultimate Tie Dye Set
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The Mini Delices 5in1 Chocolate Workshop not only makes fabulous treats but is a great way to have fun with Kitchen Science!
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What Is The Mini Delices 5in1 Chocolate Workshop?
The Mini Delices Chocolate Workshop allows children to create bite-size chocolate treats for themselves, friends and family, in a safe and relatively easy way. The product contains everything you need to make, display and wrap the chocolate treats with. But it doesn’t contain though is the raw ingredients… namely the chocolate and/or any sprinkles and decorations!
What’s In The Box?
Inside the box you get
- 1 x workstation with turntable and heart display area
- 1x bain marie
- 4 chocolate mould trays (multiple moulds in each)
- 1x sprinkle bowl
- 2x sprinkle pots (empty)
- 1x mini brush
- 1x mini spatula
- 1x mini spoon
- 1x mini tongs/tweezers
- 6x flat reuseable plastic lollipop sticks (white)
- 6x flat reuseable sticks (pink)
- 3 mini gift boxes
- 6 foil wrappers
- 12 cellophane gift bags
The workstation needs a little construction which is easy to follow using a diagram on the instruction leaflet. The trickiest part is putting a large heart-shaped sticker on the smaller heart base. And as mentioned there is no chocolate or sprinkle included.
How To Use The Mini Delices 5in1 Chocolate Workshop
Melting The Chocolate In The Bain-Marie
The first task is to use the bain-marie to melt the chocolate. This was the area I was most concerned about and had images of myself having to use the microwave instead. But I needn’t have worried, although this part does use boiling water so adult supervision is required!
Remove the inner bowl from the bain-marie and pour hot water up to the water line mark. Do not go over this mark!
The instructions said to use hot water from the tap so we used some cooled-down water from the kettle.
The inner bowl is then carefully pushed back in and your chocolate pieces are then placed in this bowl where the warmed-up plastic will start to melt the chocolate pieces. You can use chocolate chips, melts or pieces. We used a thin 100g M&S chocolate bar, broken up into small pieces that melted really easily!
Filling The Chocolate Moulds
Once all the chocolate is melted it’s time to start filling the moulds, which can be a little messy!
Place your chocolate mould onto the pale pink turn table and position the Baine Marie comfortably next to it. Using the mini spoon fill your moulds with the melted chocolate. Some of the moulds have slots for for the plastic sticks to rest in… so add those when you’ve filled the mould up to the stick level.
Young kids are going to get messy doing this, and for some, there may be a little frustration as chocolate dribbles fall onto the mould surface and the workstation. It happens to the best of us and is easy to clean up afterwards!
Use the turntable to move the mould around as it fills.
We managed to fill 2 of the four moulds using the 100g chocolate bar.
Then pop them in the fridge for 40ish minutes to harden.
Decorating Your Mini Treats
When your chocolate is totally solid carefully pop them out of the moulds.
They can be left plain or decorated with sprinkles. To do this use a sticky sweet substance (icing sugar, honey, jam etc) or the remnants of any chocolate in your bain-marie (you may need to add more hot water to remelt the chocolate).
You can either paint the area of your chocolate with your sticky substance first using the mini brush and then dip your chocolate in a bowl of sprinkles.
Or use the plastic tweezers to pick up an individual sprinkle, dip that in the sticky substance and then place it on your chocolate.
Either method works well.
Finally, you can choose to wrap your chocolate treats up as gifts, display them on your workstation or simply eat them yourself!
What Did We Think Of The Mini Delices 5in1 Chocolate Workshop?
I was hugely impressed with the Mini Delices 5in1 Chocolate Workstation. All the parts are well made and it’s straightforward to use. Younger kids may get a bit messy but that’s part of the fun… just make sure you’re using a wipeable surface!
There’s lots of creativity involved as well as a little stem (melting points, change of state, temperature transference etc). And the creative chocolate designs can become quite intricate by adding hidden centres and layering different types/colours of chocolate. This would be a great way to investigate the different states of chocolate and to see what happens if you mix warmed chocolate or allow layers to harden first before adding more
It’s also really easy to clean and re-use which I personally value quite highly when it comes to kids craft kits and toys.
No Chocolate Included
Don’t let the lack of chocolate (or decorations) put you off. This is actually really useful as it allows you to have control over the quality and type of chocolate used. It means you can buy and use the chocolate that your kids actually like or that you are happy for them to eat.
My eldest for example only likes white chocolate. Ro loves all chocolate and Ra has a penchant for dark. As for myself, I’m dairy intolerant, so if my kids want to make me some sweet treats they can easily go and get some vegan chocolate. Everyone is happy!!!