Worthing chocolate-making experience: We try out this fun workshop for adults and children

Located in the heart of the town centre, Charlene’s Chocolate Factory in the Guildbourne Centre is Worthing’s answer to Willy Wonka’s factory.

Inside, not only can you buy a host of hand-made chocolate pieces like edible crayons and chocolate shoes, but you can also take part in a selection of group workshops to design and create your own tasty treats.

Charlene’s is part of the Guildbourne Centre’s renaissance – as one of the centre’s most recent tenants it has helped it to become full for the first time in years. It launched a year ago, and has already become a firm favourite with chocolate-lovers in the town and beyond.

It is by Richard Ruthven and his partner Sophie Gunn, and is named after Richard’s daughter Charlene.

Richard started his career as a chef, working in restaurants across the area. But it was after buying a bar of Marmite chocolate seven years ago that he started down a sweeter path.

He said: “It just tasted awful, and I thought ‘I can do that better’.

"So I went home and made a bar how I thought it should be done, and it tasted good.

"I started making chocolate from home, and then when Covid hit things went a bit mad and the business expanded. So when the chance to have this unit came up we took it.

"We love having the space to be able to offer workshops and make people smile.

"We still sell Marmite chocolate from time-to-time, but we’ve gone from having about five different types of bar to 50.”

When he met Sophie, he trained her up and now they both run the business together.

Workshops can be tailored to people’s tastes and dietary requirements, and are priced at £15 to make chocolate bark, £20 for bars or lollipops, £25 for making a combination of products and £38 for making filled Easter eggs.

They are also holding a walk-in session this Friday (April 7), from 11am to 3pm, where for £7.99 participants can make three chocolate lollipops.

During my session, I made chocolate bars and lollipops and came away with a huge array of delicious chocolate. Safe to say I was very popular in my family when I came home with my bulging bag of chocolatey goodness.

But not only that, I felt proud of my creations and I had a really enjoyable time. I thought it was really worth the money for the experience I got and the amount of products I came away with.

Richard is incredibly knowledgeable about all things chocolate, and you can really feel his passion.

I was surprised at how technical it is to ensure chocolate is properly tempered – it involves heating it to specific temperatures and then bringing the fats and oils back together carefully. That way, you get chocolate with the perfect shine and crack.

Thankfully, I didn’t have to worry about that process, as Richard has machines that keep the pre-tempered chocolate at the perfect temperature and constantly flowing through a tap.

It was almost torture not to try to stick my face underneath the chocolate tap and have a drink!

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Richard explained how to pour chocolate, and create simple but effective patterns in it. I was able to feather my chocolate, and create heart designs, and we even used cocoa butter transfers to create striking detail on two of my lollipops.

You can also add in any sweets or chocolates you like from a huge choice. I had cola bottles, white mice, fizzy bubblegum sweets, honeycomb, strawberry fudge, sea salt and more across my different designs.

It was a really enjoyable way to spend an hour or so, and I know my children would absolutely love it.

For details on how to book, and more information about the workshops and the products sold in Charlene’s, see the website.