High school students whip up desserts for annual chocolate festival

For the past two years, right around this time, Bloomington High School South students have noticed a strangely enticing scent unfurling from the culinary laboratory. Students have a hard time passing this room without having every taste bud on their tongue standing at attention. Three separate classes are to blame for this midday distraction.\nChocolate Fest, an annual event from 6 to 9 p.m. Saturday to celebrate one of the world's favorite foods and to benefit the Options for Better Living program, has motivated both young and old to do more with a bar of chocolate than just eat it.\nFamily and consumer science teacher Teresa Tresslar teaches the advanced cooking class at BHSS. This past week, her students have been busy coming up with possible recipes and deciding on one that will become the final entry. The two beginning cooking classes will also submit their culinary masterpieces and have been working on recipes for the past several weeks.\n"This class is not like art where you have an art show to display your work," Tresslar says. "(Chocolate Fest) is the sort of venue where (the culinary students) might get recognition."\nChocolate Fest participants compete in eight categories: Cheesecake Creations, Incredible Cakes, Perfect Pies, Cookies and Pies, Candy, Anything Else (puddings, fruit dips, etc.), Restaurants and Cooking by Kids. Cooking by Kids is a category exclusively for children under 12.\n"The neatest part is watching the kids ... getting their awards," Veronica Amarant says. Amarant is the development coordinator for Options for Better Living and has organized the event for the past two years. Amarant says she recalls one 6-year-old who won an award for her chocolate cake.\nIn past years, BHSS students have come out ahead in several of the eight mouth-watering categories. Students took home first place in the "bars and cookies" category for a recipe Tresslar says they "truly made up." The student's 'chewy gooey brownies,' which contain chocolate chips and caramel and are topped with melted marshmallows, won the hearts and the stomachs of the judges. She says she is confident that her class will bring home awards this year as well.\nWhen you are dealing in chocolate, anything is fair game. Dark chocolates, semisweet, milk chocolate, Dutch chocolate, Spanish chocolate, German chocolate and bittersweet. After the chocolate base is established, the recipe then calls for creativity. Past recipes have included everything from Kahlua to noodles.\nWhen Bloomington resident Kathleen Plucker gets into the kitchen to prepare for Chocolate Fest, she means business. Plucker has won awards for the past two years and is looking to keep her winning streak fresh this year as well.\nPlucker says she enjoys entering the contest not only because she enjoys baking, but also because she appreciates the value of the Options for Better Living program. \n"I love baking … and we all love chocolate," she says. Plucker also says she and her husband enjoy the competition that comes along with the event.\nChocolate Fest has become a tradition for the Pluckers, although this year they run the risk of missing the event. Plucker is close to her due date and says she hopes the baby will hold off for a few more weeks so she can continue the February ritual.\nThe first year she entered, Plucker brought home a first-place prize for her chocolate Kahlua cake, a favorite of her husband. Last year, her chocolate macadamia nut pie came in third, and she received honors for coffee-flavored chocolate bars affectionately called "Deadlies."\nPlucker says she gets her inspiration from family favorites, or just from recipes she happens to stumble upon.\nStudents at BHSS have a slightly different method when selecting recipes for the festival. Tresslar says she tells her students to bring in recipes and try to add their own angle to the old favorites. After the class compiles the recipes, it then votes on its favorite and prepares the dessert for the competition.\nThe Bloomington residents are pitted against amateur and professional chefs alike in this battle of the cocoa bean. Local restaurants even have their own category. Encore Cafe is just one of several that will enter the competition this year. \nEncore Cafe has entered the competition for almost four years and has plaques from the previous competition lining the walls of the restaurant. This year, both bakers from Encore Cafe will participate in Chocolate Fest activities.\n"It is fun for the bakers, and we usually do pretty well," says Jim Silberstein, owner of Encore Cafe.\nThere is no word as to what the Cafe bakers will enter in the different categories.\nBut not to worry, veteran Chocolate Fest participants have nailed down tricks that could turn even a first-time entrant into a winner.\n"Make something you really like," Plucker advises, "and go with a theme. There is so much chocolate there, visuals can really distinguish (your entry)."\nTresslar also suggests using visuals to make your piece (or pie) stand above the rest. She attributes some of the success of the award-winning chocolate chip cheesecake to the decoration her students added atop the pie.\nEmployee Development Coordinator at Options Andrea Garafolo will try her hand at Chocolate Fest treats for the first time this year.\nGarafolo will spend time in her kitchen with Jim McCorckle, also an Options employee, whipping up a chocolate peanut butter mousse pie and chocolate pecan bars.\n"I'm not really concerned about (the competition)," Garafolo says, "I am just in it for fun."\nFortunately, the concern about calories can be easily washed away because of the philanthropic value of the event. All proceeds from Chocolate Fest go to the Options for Better Living program, which helps people with disabilities throughout Southern Indiana.