Aurora Grace Chocolate Shop In Society Hill Offering Unique, Hand-Painted Treats For Easter
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - A new chocolate shop making a splash in Society Hill for its beautiful bonbons is offering up some fun Easter treats for the holiday. You'd be amazed by the dazzling creations self-taught chocolatier Aurora Wold churns out of her Aurora Grace kitchen just a block off of 5th and South.
Her signature sweets are colorful, hand-painted bonbons, whose flavor combos are just as unique as they look. The shop churns out about 3,000 a week.
"My personal favorite is the spicy dark chocolate, so we use locally grown chili peppers," Wold said.
Just in time for Easter, Wold is applying similar techniques on some hand-cast chocolate eggs.
"They're really fun because they're all filled with little pralines, which are different types of nut butters and there's wafer bits inside," she said.
The most important step is the very first one, tempering the chocolate.
"Ideally, we want it to be between 30 and 33 degrees Celsius," Wold said. "Everything has to be precise. There's a lot that can go wrong."
The next step is painting the molds with colored cocoa butter. Once they dry, it's time to cast the molds in chocolate. The shells are cooled, cast again and then cooled a second time until they are ready to fill. Once filled with goodies and carefully melted together, the egg is ready to be broken open to get to the treats inside.
At just 24 years old and less than two years after starting Aurora Grace out of her apartment, Wold has a thriving Etsy shop, a loyal following at area farmers' markets and her own retail storefront. So how did she do it?
"Don't let anybody tell you no," she said. "But I will say, make sure that you've got the grit and the persistence to keep going with it, it's definitely not easy.
"I really enjoy what I do and then when you're done, you get a beautiful, delicious result, how can you complain?" Wold asked with a laugh.
Aurora Grace is holding an Easter egg making class Friday, April 19 from 5-7 p.m. at its shop at 517 S 5th St. The cost is $45.
You can sign up here.
They'll also accept walk-ins on Easter Sunday from 10 a.m. - 2 p.m. to paint an egg and take it home.