The wedding chocolates project for Iman and Samuel

Hello, O discerning, peaceful, kind, incarnated soul in this human body, who is reading those words. l want to share with you my latest project, which has been to make chocolates for the wedding of Iman and Samuel.

The chocolates were in the form of the pot-lucks which you know about, and they chose 3 flavours, 2 of them already created, and one flavour, a new venture for me, which involve white chocolate, rose and cherry, which was Samuel's favourite as he loves white chocolate.

The latter was a bit complex. l wanted to get organic cherry powder for them, but other than finding sour cherry or acerola cherry powder as organic, l couldn't get hold of organic cherry powder, so had to buy some conventional one instead. l decided to get some of the organic acerola cherry powder to see what it tasted like, as it is very good for health, apparently. Acerola cherry powder came looking bright orange, which was challenging as it did make the white chocolate a non-appealing, non-cherry, look. Fortunately, the conventional Polish freeze-dried cherry powder was brightly coloured, of a beautiful burgandy/dark pink, but, it arrived in a huge tight lump. l started working with this lump, broke it up, sieving it, by putting it in a pestle and mortar to crush it, then thought it may blend well into melted cocoa butter as it wasn't loosening very well in the marble. Once in the cocoa butter, the sticky powder clogged into lumps, which would not dissolve!

l resorted to using a hand blender to try and break-up those lumps, but to no avail. In the end, l discarded this cocoa butter/cherry mix which l put aside with great calm and peace ( l didn't swear at all when this failed, l am as cool as a Brit, me!) and l carried on my venture with the acerola cherry powder in white chocolate, and decided as indeed it didn't look apetising, that l could add this vegetable and fruit based powder colouring, into it. The result was nicer than the orange, but still not great. l added some rose essence, still working to get my flavours right, and chose the Otto rose, as it is my favourite (the gentlest rose flavour) and very little of the other type, the Absolute, which is a lot stronger (more like "old fashioned" roses smell, which makes me run a mile). l regretted having used more of the Otto as actually, the sour cherry was nicer with the more pungent rose extract, so l added more of this one.

The next day, l looked at the disappointing cocoa butter/conventional pink cherry powder lump, (not swearing at the loss of it, at all) and decided to try one last thing: to put it in a blender, and see what would happen, as l happen to have one of those "Ninja" blenders that are generally very good, except with cardamom seeds which l have to finish grinding by hand. l know the problem was the slightest amount of humidity in this freeze-dried cherry powder, hence why it was so sticky when l pounded it the previous day. It is very hard to dehydrate freeze-dried powder, as l saw in the past, the oven is either too cold or too hot, and the beautiful colour will turn into a brown if very slightly warm, and left to the air for few hours.  l thought nothing good would happen with this blender, but, it did! (it is where l felt very foolish having sworn that much at the "disaster") The cocoa butter lump reduced itself off into a beautiful powder, which l was able to add to the original mix, and make the rose and cherry white chocolate. In this photo, you can see the micro grains of conventional cherry powder, but the colour is lovely, now.

The result of the set chocolates was beautiful, and it was ready to pack.

I have made more of the cherry and rose in white chocolate, which is now available as a pot-luck in the website shop. It is slightly sour and not very sweet, the cherry flavour is strong, and the rose plentiful.

The other flavours that Iman and Samuel wanted were lavender in milk chocolate (my favourite) and the fig, pistachio and cardamom in dark chocolate, both easy to make, fortunately. The chocolates then were all wrapped in the 12 foil colours and wrapped individually in the plastic-free PLA packaging with a label with ingredients, in both French and English, and a description of the content with a tiny drawing.

Then, because they were keen on my artwork, they asked me to draw a picture which would be printed instead of the Wagtails adventures on the front of the pot-luck cards, for their wedding day and their choice was their totem animals, a swan, and a fox.

This is my first attempt at the idea.

Samuel suggested that the fox could be giving its paw to the swan, which was a good idea, seeing that in nature, both animals would be weary of each other, and a fox would happily steal the swan's chicks for its dinner. So, in this image with the paw up, the fox would be changing its behaviour, and acting as an equal to the swan, making a pact of peace, which l felt was a balanced and a very grown-up way to illustrate the two symbols. The drawing took me ages. l was petrified of not managing to draw the 2 animals well enough in their requested black and white, and finding an image with the right pose was troublesome, particularly for a sitting fox in profile.  Finding a fox which gave its paw was not possible as they don't do that in nature, they seem to only pull their whole front leg up a bit like a cat does, so l had to find the image of a dog which gives its paw, and try to make the paw a bit more fox-like. Samuel had given me an image to illustrate at first the idea of a fox and swan, which he did using AI (no idea what program that was from, l have never used AI to create text nor drawings) and to have the image of AI of which the frame was beautiful and more creative than l could ever think of was intimidating: how could l do something as beautiful as this? l cannot compete with AI. Fortunately, the fox wasn't right and had the head of a swan and it was all a bit too mixed up, so l had to then find my own images.

Ai will replace humans, nobody needs us if "it" can do it itself! l was so peeved but had to swallow my pride!

The attempt at the paw, and Samuel who saw this said he wanted a bushier tail, so l did.

The swan is getting completed in this picture.

And, voila! Here is the end result! Iman and Samuel loved it, and l was still on time to get it printed and send the parcel! Before printing, l decided to make an adjustment on the back of the pot-luck card: to change 2 of the protagonists, removing the Pharaoh who has not a very good aura generally (in my deck of pot-lucks he is so: he is manipulative, despotic, and unloving towards its subjects) and l also wanted to remove Tony the drummer with his mad grin, even if he is harmless as a character, he may look a bit odd on a wedding card, since he was originally a caricature of a semi-imaginary drummer. (the real Tony didn't look like this, when , instead of wanting to come and practice drum in my band, he went off mountain biking with his mates in Wales)

l removed them and drew, without telling Iman and Samuel, the best l could, a representation of their faces instead. l only had one photo of them, where l had the wrong angle for Iman, and l drew her face too wide, in reality l think her face is longer and thinner. Samuel isn't too bad a representation of his real self, but still isn't quite like the photo. Remember, l am not the excellent art student l would have wanted to be when l was at school. l think Samuel's lips are too dark, and it looks like he has lipstick, but nowadays, as anything goes, it perhaps doesn't matter. It makes it look like he plays in a heavy metal band!

l was happy enough with their faces (still terrorised while drawing them, that they would end up looking like stick-people) and rearranged the card on Affinity photo (the replacement for Photoshop which has advantages over photoshop), and sent the whole thing to the printer's. Only 100 cards were needed for the wedding as they were going to put 3 chocolates in a silk bag and one card in there, so l asked the printers to print an extra 10 cards so l could have a few for my collection of artwork. They came back, and they looked beautiful... l was SO pleased with them! l felt as proud as if l had laid an egg!

Iman and Samuel were very happy to see the result (they did not comment about the change of characters which they could see on this very picture, so l don't know if they did notice it).

I had to make some fabric bags of course, to put the chocolates in and keep them safe during transit, and the parcel was ready. (notice in this photo, the viscose fabric is a bit wrinkled, but that is what we get with viscose, it does wrinkle easily)

They needed some crown fabric to bring them riches and sovereignty during their mariage and lives.

l didn't take a photo of the 3d bag!

I put in a few traditional pot-lucks in there as well so they could have a few cards to see the difference. The parcel was then sent to France, with the worry of it not arriving on time: their wedding being at the end of October, and the post to France sometimes taking several weeks to arrive, for no reasons.

It was sent using Parcel Forced "tracked" service, and as usual, stalled somewhere in France, at customs, where they decided there would be a custom fee to pay of £35 (the parcel cost the same amount to send, l was glad the customs fee was not any higher!) and in the end, it arrived within 10 days to Samuel's parents address in Bordeaux. As Samuel and Iman are abroad at the moment, they didn't open the parcel, but l can just imagine his parents slaving away putting the chocolates in the silk bag with the card which Iman would have ordered for them, and them discussing the wedding, which is taking place in a beautiful old castle near Barcelona, which sadly, l cannot attend. (l do get invited to my customers weddings, can you imagine!) l did of course add a few samples so they could try them without having to use the ones for the guests, and made them a few Pharaoh head moulded chocolates with the flavours, to allow the Pharaoh to be part of the wedding, but him to be present in a much more submissive role, so he can be eaten, and not expand his influence onto the young couple for very long. Iman did ask me not to use the Indian elephant god mould (Ganesh) which is one of my latest Pot-Luck moulds addition ( it is a beautiful mould), because her family being from Somalia might take offense at the Indian religious figure, or think it inappropriate. However, l do not know if her family had any Egyptian ancestors, and any link with the Pharaoh (or, one of them). Why was it so important to remove it, is no real reasons, other than somewhere in time and space, this action will unlock another action.

I wish the young couple all the best, may their path together be paved with groundedness, calm, joy and wellbeing, and that the challenges they will face will be met with integrity, wisdom, open communication, and based on unconditional love. As if l was capable of that myself (?!), l am hoping others may, as they grow with kindness, compassion and wisdom. This is it for my Wedding project! l hope you enjoyed reading it, l just had to share it with you, those things are exciting. CHOCOLATE NEWS: The Armagnac Agen prunes are back in the shop for those who have been asking me for them. l am waiting for a delivery of prunes from France, but they have increased 25% so there will be minimal prunes this Christmas as l ordered less than usual. l am fed-up putting the prices up, when will those globalist idiots stop tickling us with artificial "inflation"? It has lasted for a millenium now, their ridiculous business with "putting prices up". Apart from that, all is well in the chocolate world, l am now thinking of my Christmas Aposltes drawing, and l have changed my idea as to where the Apostles ( the Apple Sauce, or so most customers hear when l say Apostles) are going. They were going to Antartica but in July l was too busy and didn't have the time to research what is actually going on in Antartica, and which aliens may be living there in bases, so l decided earlier, after a nap, that they should be going to Mars instead, since they have already visited the Moon. l am making new tablettes for the website, they are a bit boring but have nice artwork on, they are 4 toasted nuts: almonds, hazelnuts, pistachios and cashew nuts, in milk and dark chocolate. l don't know when l will put them online, yet. l will make some more coffee date and hazelnut chocolate (now out of stock), and more ginger, as well as more caramel milk before the end of the month, and then this is it for the tablettes, when they are gone, l will not make any more till next year, as l will be too busy with the Christmas prunes, and Apostles assortments. This is it for today, l wish you a good evening!

PS: what, no conspiracy news today in this blog post? Oh no, what happened! (l have fallen out with the conspiracy? or is it that my homeopath has told me to refrain looking at too many stressful news! Let's say l do keep an eye on it, but l should instead be reading Hahnneman's lectures which will be more useful)