These days, everyone knows what a chocolate fountain is, and it is a big hit at parties, including weddings.
Here are some tips to make including a chocolate fountain into your event a huge success:
Chocolate
- If you are having only one chocolate fountain at your event, serve Milk chocolate. Milk chocolate is the most popular because it’s the sweetest. Dark chocolate isn’t sweet at all and doesn’t taste great on fruit etc. White chocolate tends to be unpopular because it doesn’t really have much of a taste to it.
- If you are having more than one fountain at your event, feel free to have more than one type of chocolate, like dark chocolate or white chocolate.
- If you have lots of diabetics at your event, serve up a specialty dark chocolate fountain for them.
- The chocolate needs to be in liquid form, not solid. Professional chocolate fountain vendors purchase their chocolate in chip form and have a professional melter, and they provide the chocolate to you in a bucket. Your chocolate should not be filled with filler, such as milk or oil (yuck!).
Dippings
- Serve a variety of dipping options.
- Fruit is very popular but you can also have things like pound cake, banana bread, marshmallows, graham wafers (mmmmm… s’mores), icewafer cookies, cinnamon coffee cake, biscotti etc. Some people even like to serve pretzels.
- Be sure to follow appropriate food service guidelines at your event. The perishable dipping items (fruit, for example) should be on display at room temperature for no more than one hour before it is discarded and replaced with fresh. Non-perishable things like pretzels, biscotti, marshmallows etc., can stay on display for many hours without becoming contaminated.
Service
- Always, always, ALWAYS have skewers or forks available for service. I cannot stress this enough! You need to provide your guests with a way to dip their food into the chocolate without using their fingers. Once a person’s fingers get into the chocolate the whole fountain is contaminated and must be discarded according to food service and safety rules!
- In addition, you must provide appropriate serving tools on each of the dipping items. At no time should a guest’s hands or fingers touch any food or chocolate at the service stations.
- Serve the chocolate fountain as a snack and not the dessert.
- Have at least one fountain for every 50 to 60 guests, otherwise there are long line ups to get to the fountain, and NO ONE likes to wait in line for food.
- If you are waiting to have your speeches and people are still waiting in line for their dessert, you’ll either have to wait for them (which can take forever) or else you have to start the program when people are standing in line – either way, its not a good thing.
- Set up the fountains at various stations to allow for easy access for the guests. Best case scenario is you have the fountains on large round tables, or at least rectangular tables with guest access on both sides – this will speed up the process.
- Come prepared with extension cords so that you can plug in the fountains in the middle of the room instead of plugging them in against the wall.
- Take a look at #1 again and make sure there are skewers!
Presentation
- There are lots of ways to design your chocolate fountain table. Position the food nicely around the fountain and offer a good variety of items to dip.
- The fountains always come with the base uncovered. Its up to you if you want to cover that base or not – its not very attractive though.
- Always – always – ALWAYS put a plastic tablecloth on the chocolate fountain table. It can be clear so as not to be too noticeable, but always use a plastic tablecloth. The chocolate will certainly make a big mess and if you’re using rented linens, you probably just purchased yourself a tablecloth because quality chocolate stains really badly and is especially difficult to get out after its been sitting untreated for several days.
- Alternately, purchase your own table coverings for the chocolate fountain table so that you won’t be charged full replacement fees from your linen rental supplier.
- Its also a good idea to put a plastic drop cloth on the floor around the fountain tables. Check with your venue – if they have carpet flooring they might insist upon protective covering.
You can find chocolate fountain vendors in your area easily by searching with Google or your local bridal network. In Calgary, the best chocolate fountain vendor is The Chocolate Fountain.I have used them at many events and definitely recommend them.
