How to make truffles, and learn Milton Hershey’s love story
Special classes at the Chocolate Lab Feb. 8, 9, 14-16
The Hershey Story Museum is bringing back its popular evening truffle-making classes for couples during Chocolate-Covered February, with one new twist. “Truffles for Couples: Introducing Ruby Chocolate,” will be held on select evenings in February and gives participants the opportunity to learn about the newest variety of chocolate: ruby chocolate.
“Truffles for Couples: Introducing Ruby Chocolate” begins with a delectable tasting experience of single-source warm drinking chocolates from around the world. Participants will then enter the lab, where the truffle-making begins. They’ll hand-roll both ruby and traditional dark chocolate ganache, coat them in milk or white chocolate, finish with toppings then package their scrumptious delights in a decorative box. They’ll also receive a heart-shaped candy bar and a long-stemmed red rose. Guests who partake in Truffles for Couples will also learn about the courtship and marriage of Milton and Catherine Hershey.
Learning more about ruby chocolate is also incorporated into this year’s classes. Touted as the “4th chocolate,” behind white, milk and dark chocolates, ruby chocolate is unique in color and in flavor. Launched in September 2017 and introduced in the US in 2018, it offers a totally new taste experience, which is not bitter, milky or sweet, but a blend of berry or lemony fruitiness mixed with luscious smoothness.
“Truffles for Couples: Introducing Ruby Chocolate” is most suitable for adults and $25 per person. To learn more and to register, please visit HersheyStory.org; online registration required.
A Chocolate-Covered Love Story
Milton Hershey met Catherine Sweeney in 1897, during a business trip to her hometown, Jamestown, New York. Mr. Hershey stopped at a local soda shop where he saw Catherine socializing with friends. The two were introduced and the rest, as they say, is history. After a year-long courtship, the young working class woman from New York married the successful chocolate-making entrepreneur from Pennsylvania in 1898 in the rectory of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City. Catherine was 25 and Milton was 40.
Although Mr. Hershey was extremely busy building his chocolate empire, he was deeply devoted to “Kitty,” as he called her, and made time for the two to travel. Their extensive traveling took them to England, France and Egypt. While the trips were primarily for pleasure, their purpose grew to include seeking a cure for an undiagnosed illness from which Kitty was suffering. Sadly, a cure for Kitty’s illness was never found and she died in 1915 at the age of 43.
Milton Hershey never remarried, instead focusing on expanding his chocolate company and developing his model industrial town. As for Milton Hershey’s love of Kitty, the cliché rings true—love never dies. He carried a photograph of Kitty with him until his death in 1945. Throughout his life he gave Kitty much credit. In fact, when Milton Hershey placed his fortune in trust for the newly established residential school for orphan boys, he credited his wife for the plan to create an orphan school. “It was Kitty’s idea,” he would always say when asked about the impulse to establish the school (known today as Milton Hershey School).
More information about Catherine Hershey and her contributions, as well as information about Milton Hershey, can be found by visiting www.HersheyArchives.org, or click here for more information about Kitty’s life.