Faith sent Jennifer and I an email asking if we wanted to attend a cooking class at the Kerry Center. The cooking class was titled, “Life’s Like a Box of Chocolate” – how can we say no to that title. For 300rmb ($47) per person, we attended class from 9am to 1pm, but lasted until almost 2pm. Master chef Francois Pietri was teaching six ladies how to make truffles, cookies, brownies, crunchy krispies, half baked cakes and white chocolate mousse.

All the ingredients were pre-measured for us. We would mix and prepare our chocolate delights for the oven. The most valuable item in the pre-measured boxes were the chocolates. Good baking chocolates are hard to find in Shanghai. The cost of the class of 300rmb did not even cover the ingredients’ cost.

We made 7 different kinds of chocolate delights this day. I should have taken a photo of all my finished chocolates I took home. I had about 12 boxes (the size of the pre-measured boxes of ingredients) of chocolates. I gave Emersyn two brownie boxes, a box of cookies and two boxes of crunchy krispies to take to the sleep over birthday party she was attending. I gave Bindi a box of crunchy krispies and cookies when I picked Lili up for a sleep over at our house. I sent Mr. Nie home with a box of cookies and crunchy krispies. I sent Ayi home with a box of crunchy krispies. I saved all the half baked cakes for us! I had six little cakes which were my favorite – and the most work, of course. It was well worth the 300rmb we paid – the chocolate baked goodies would have cost me double the price. And, it was a fun afternoon with friends.