Chocolate fountain

A chocolate fountain by Sweet Springs. Image by etsai.

A chocolate fountain is a fountain which pumps liquid/melted chocolate instead of water. Guests spear various foods and then put them under one of the tiers of the fountain so the food will become enrobed in chocolate.

Chocolate fountains are popular at buffet-style receptions, where people tend to "hover" over the food bar. Increasing in popularity in recent years, these fountains can be purchased in full-size for around $3,000, or rented from party suppliers for around $500 in most metropolitan areas.

Chocolate is a crowd-pleaser, certainly, but it is important to consider the bridal party and mothers of the bride and groom when choosing your chocolate. Pastels, champagnes, and creams abound in wedding parties, particularly in the spring and summer months. For photographs and video archives, it would be devastating to have a big brown drip of chocolate on the matron-of-honor's dress, much worse, the bride's! Please consider white chocolate as a delicious and special alternative to dark or milk chocolate in a wedding situation, if only to save the bride the worry. White chocolate can also be colored using a powdered food coloring (water-based will clump the chocolate!) to match bridesmaid dresses or wedding colors, if desired.

These fountains are beautiful, regardless of the chocolate used, but what to dip? Wooden skewers are very convenient conveyers of food-to-fountain. Foods that stay on the skewers, of course, will be the best to dip! Marshmallows stick well, as does dense sponge cake and pound cake, and let's not forget the ever-romantic strawberry. Foods to avoid: dry brownies and cakes, cookies, bananas, or other foods that break apart easily. The more likely a food is to crumble, the more likely it is to end up on someone's tux rental.

Please take this information into consideration when including a chocolate fountain in your reception's buffet table, and enjoy watching people creatively devise ways of dipping and things to dip.

Rawee1

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