The Essential Guide to an Unforgettable Chocolate Party

Why I LOVE chocolate

Chocolate is without a doubt my favourite thing in the world as you can see on my website profile.  My Dad is a chocolate maker (as was my Grandfather and his Father too), so it’s always been a big deal in my family, and I was lucky enough to feel a bit like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory as I was growing up.  My 8th birthday party was the best I ever had, as my Dad said that I could invite some friends to visit his factory. When we arrived, we all had to put on those funny white hair nets and special overalls, then as soon as the door opened to the factory floor, THE SMELL!!! Oh wow! It was the most spectacular, overwhelming and glorious smell of chocolate you could imagine, almost as if you were swimming in the stuff. My Dad, or Wonka as his friends sometimes call him, showed us around all the machines, explaining how they all worked and what was going on, and in most cases let us pick sweets and chocolates off the conveyor belts as they whizzed past. Thankfully none of my friends were quite as odious as the children that Willy Wonka ended up with in his factory, so we didn’t lose anyone along the way.

I remember being fascinated by some enormous bronze cauldron type things that had lots of different nuts in them and were spinning to cover them in chocolate.  One of the major highlights came at the very end when we were pointed towards a big tap in the wall, which when you turned it, the most delicious chocolate imaginable poured out. We were all given an empty tupperware and allowed to fill them to take home, total and utter heaven!

Invitation

There’s only really one way to invite your guests to a chocolate-themed party, and that’s to send out Wonka bars to your friends with a golden ticket inside. I’d recommend buying a large Galaxy bar for each invitation, then rewrapping it in tin foil before adding your golden ticket and the outer Wonka sleeve.
Link to Wonka Template 

Decoration

I don’t feel you have to go too crazy on decoration for a chocolate party, but if you’re up for it, you want to convert your kitchen or the room that you’re hosting the party into a chocolate factory with as many giant sweets and chocolates as possible.  Bear in mind if you set up a chocolate fountain, chocolate making station and table of party food, it’ll look pretty great before you even start decorating. If you take inspiration from the chocolate river scene in the original Charlie and the Chocolate Factory film, then astroturf down the middle of the table and large pot plants with sweets hidden in them or hanging off them are very effective.  

If you’re practical and up for some diy decorating, then using foam pool noodles, you can make brilliant giant candy canes by sticking white tape in a spiral up their length and bending the top third into a crook by inserting a straightened coat hanger through the middle.  You can also make giant spiral boiled sweets by rolling a foam pool noodle into a ‘snail’, taping it together and wrapping it in that crinkly transparent cellophane with twists at both ends.

Games

There are lots of great sweetie and chocolate based games that work well for all ages. In our experience it’s worth interspersing edible games with a few traditional and active party games so that the entire party isn’t spent scoffing sweets! Here are a few of our favourite edible games:

After 8 Race

Each player is given an after 8, or square of chocolate if you’d rather, and they place it on their forehead and try to get it into their mouths without using their hands.  The fastest to succeed wins, but the real fun is watching everyone wiggle their eyebrows and cheeks trying to get the chocolate down their faces!

Bootlace Race

Line up two teams, with each person facing their ‘opposite number’. Hand each person a strawberry bootlace and get the first person in each line to put one end in their mouth and try to eat it as fast as possible without using their hands. As soon as the first person in the team has got their whole bootlace into their mouth, they sit down and the next player starts. The first team to all be sitting down wins.

Smartie Sucking

Give everyone a cup and a straw, cover a table with Smarties and on ‘GO’ everyone tries to get as many Smarties into their cup as possible by lifting them off the table and into their cup using suction through the straw alone.  It’s worth giving a demo and letting everyone have a try before you start so they know what they’re doing.  Also, for anyone under the age of 6, you’ll really have to check that they understand they need to suck the straw, otherwise you end up with a lot of slobber on the table and not many Smarties in the cups! 

Malteser Tape

This is a great team game in which each team is given a tape measure and a bag of Maltesers.  The aim is to roll a Malteser the longest distance down the tape into someone’s mouth.  It may require team members to support the tape to prevent the Maltese rolling off.

Chocolate Game

One of my favourite games of all time, that is best for smaller numbers, so if you have more than 10 people, I’d suggest splitting into two groups.  Everyone sits in a circle around a chopping board with a large bar of chocolate, a knife and fork and two dice on it.  In the circle is also a hat, scarf and pair of gloves.  Players take it in turns to roll the dice and as soon as someone gets a double 6, they put the hat, scarf and gloves on and start eating the chocolate with the knife and fork. Crucially you can only eat one square at a time, so need to cut it up neatly.  As soon as the next player gets a double six, they grab the hat, scarf, gloves and cutlery and get cracking on the chocolate. If you want to speed things up a bit, just use one die and change player every time a 6 is rolled.

Chocolate and Sweet Making

          1. Truffles

Prepare the truffle base well before the party as follows: 

• Break up 300g of dark chocolate into a bowl.
• Put 300ml of double cream into a pan along with 50g of butter and gently heat until the butter is melted and the liquid is almost simmering.
• Pour the cream over the chocolate and stir until all is melted together and smooth.
• Leave this to set for a few hours in the fridge, it’ll be a bit like thick Nutella.
• At the party, give each child a spoon and plate and lay out bowls with truffle toppings in them, cocoa powder, popping candy, sprinkles, chopped white chocolate and anything else you like the sound of.
• It will be quite messy, but let each child scoop a spoon of the truffle mix to roll into a ball and then roll in whichever covering they like. 
• Give each child a small box to put their masterpieces in to take home.

           2.  Lickable wallpaper

Give each child a piece of edible rice paper and a small clean paintbrush.

Premix small pots of water, icing sugar, food colouring and any flavours you like (peppermint, vanilla, orange etc.) It wants to be a fairly thick, smooth paste.

To make their lickable wallpaper, the children can paint whatever they like on the ricepaper.

If you’re feeling adventurous, melt down different flavour boiled sweets to be painted onto the paper too.

             3. Life-size gingerbread house

This is a totally brilliant thing to do, but is quite an undertaking! I have done it a few times and really enjoyed it, but you’ve got to be up for a challenge!

Head to a DIY store or big garden centre and buy 5 large wooden trellis panels and a load of cable ties.

Saw one of the panels in half across the short width.

Use cable ties to create a basic house shape and cut out a few windows and a door.

Here’s the hard part, carefully measure the square spaces in the trellis and back enough squares of gingerbread to fill all the spaces. It’ll be A LOT, usually around 150!

Mix up a lot of royal icing and put it all into piping bags.

At the party, let the children loose on the house, using icing as their cement and gingerbread as their tiles.

Once fully tiled, use lots of candy canes and bright sweets to decorate the most enormous gingerbread house.

            4. Peppermint creams

I would prepare the mixture before the party. You’ll need:

• 250g icing sugar
• 1 egg white
• 4-5 drops of peppermint essence
• A few drops of green food colouring

Sieve the sugar into a bowl, add the peppermint and a little egg white and mix thoroughly.

Keep adding egg white until you have a nice smooth dough, and add the food colouring.

At the party, split the mixture so that everyone has a ping pong ball size piece.

Sprinkle the table with icing sugar and get the children to roll their ball into a sausage shape.

Hand out children’s knives and they can chop the sausage into small discs and put them in a bag to take home with them.

Food

As much as everyone is going to be eating a certain amount of chocolate and sweets during the party, you’re going to want to give them something a little more substantial to keep them going.  You could of course go down the pizza/hot dog route, but if you’re feeling adventurous, I’d suggest going for a savoury chocolate dish. My favourite is a chocolate chilli with rice, but here are some useful tips from Hotel Chocolat.

Cake

Unless you’re a natural contender for The Great British Bake Off, I’d suggest going for making the most delicious, Bogtrotter-esque chunky chocolate cake you can get your mits on and double the amount of icing that the recipe recommends as well as making sure you have lots of your favourite chocolates to decorate it with.

Party Bags

Everyone will have a box of truffles and some peppermint creams to take home if they haven’t scoffed them all during the party, but if you’d like to give them something else to take home with them, here are a few suggestions that work well with the theme:

Mini chocolate fondu set - £6

Hot chocolate sticks - 72p per stick

Chocolate bar moulds - £1.83 per mould

Then include some of your favourite chocs too! 

Special Extras

To really add to the sugar high, I would suggest hiring (or consider buying) one or all of these machines for the party, they’ll look great and smell even better! 

Candy floss machine

Popcorn machine

Chocolate fountain

In Summary

I totally understand that we have to be careful about our sugar intake, but once in a while, for a special birthday party, there’s nothing wrong with letting loose and getting stuck into the chocolate. Get in touch with us at Sharky & George for further ideas and availability and do share any photos with us of your chocolate parties on Instagram and tag us @sharkyandgeorgeevents

Good luck with the chocolate making!