Bompas & Parr is building a Chocolate Waterfall at Whiteleys Shopping Centre open between 22 -25 April. Visitors don a protective suit and step through a chocolate waterfall to visit a chamber flooded with five tonnes of chocolate. They will then blend and bottle a chocolate elixir in the installation’s processing unit.

This April is the 40th Anniversary of the original film Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Bompas & Parr honours Roald Dahl’s creativity by constructing a real Chocolate Waterfall that flows at a rate of 12,000 liters an hour. The waterfall serves to keep the chocolate fully mixed.

The Chocolate Waterfall pulls together Bompas & Parr’s favorite beans from around the world (Ghana, India, Indonesia and the Caribbean) to create its first house blend. Dr Rachel Edwards-Stuart, food technologist and flavour expert helped develop the recipe. The five tonne mixture is chocolatey with hints of plum, red wine and earth.

After visiting the Chocolate Waterfall people will be given the chance to bottle and take away their own chocolate elixir – a concentrated chocolate cordial. Visitors customize the chocolate elixir blending in flavours including lavender, jasmine or pine by hand.

The temporary installation will include the world’s first cloud of breathable chocolate. The technology for this was developed by Bompas & Parr in association with CASE (Centre for Altitude, Space and Extreme Environment Medicine) for Alcoholic Architecture and the Zigguat of Flavour.

Whiteleys Shopping Centre is a magical location with an illustrious history. It was built by William Whiteley as an imposing store for the public to provide everything from ‘a pin to an elephant’. It became known as the ‘universal provider’. At its peak it was the height of luxury with a golf-course on the roof and a theatre.

Dr Rachel Edwards-Stuart, food technologist and flavour expert advising on the Chocolate Waterfall commented on the final recipe:
“For the final application, the chocolate needs to be mixed with water, and the cocoa particles have the tendency to separate out with time, which is unendurable for the final application. To help keep the chocolate fountain base homogenous in appearance, I suggested the addition of a hydrocolloid, to impart some viscosity and help keep the particles (in this case the cocoa) immobilised in the suspension. After testing a number of different hydocolloids, the best results were achieved with the addition of sodium alginate or xanthan gum - not only did the presence of the hydrocolloid aid suspension, but the increased viscosity gave the base mix more of a melted chocolate texture.”

“The only limitation of such additions is that the hydrocolloid tends to trap the aroma molecules, reducing release into the waterfall headspace and therefore subsequent perception of the chocolatey smell, however this is easily and economically overcome by the addition of a chocolate aroma”