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“Please don’t say I’m the Juliette Binoche of Congresbury,” laughs chef Lisa Clarke. “And don’t say I’m the new Willy Wonka!”

As if. It’s certainly hard not to think of the films Chocolat and Charlie and The Chocolate Factory when you talk to Lisa.

OK, she doesn’t make chocolate like Wonka, doesn’t employ Oompah-Loompahs at her workshops in Congresbury and doesn’t run a shop like Binoche’s character in Chocolat, but Lisa is certainly the most passionate chocophile I’ve ever met.

She has turned her passion and interest in The Dark Stuff into a successful new business where she teaches people how to make their own chocolates.

The cheekily-named Chocolate Tart (“I called it that because I’m not loyal to any one chocolate,” smiles Lisa) offers workshops for fellow chocolate lovers to indulge in their passion and learn how to make their own sweet treats at home.

The workshops, which are run from a converted malt house behind the house Lisa shares with her wine merchant husband, Edward, and their three children, are tailored to people’s requirements and have proved popular with groups of friends and even corporate team-building.

The workshops last for three hours, with wine or soft drinks served throughout, and during that time, her clients learn the art of tasting chocolate, tempering it, hand-rolling their own truffles and making moulded chocolates with fondant fillings. At the end of the workshop, each client walks away with 120 chocolates they’ve made, all wrapped up in the sort of decorative packaging used by top chocolatiers.

Lisa started The Chocolate Tart as an extension of her other business, the upmarket catering company Hedgehog Pie.

After working for one of London’s top outside caterers for three years, she set up Hedgehog Pie in 1995 and for the past 12 years it has proved an enormous success, providing innovative food for weddings, launch parties and canapé receptions.

But it was a dinner for Breast Cancer Care at the House of Lords for the then Lord Chancellor, Lord Irving, that saw a huge change in fortunes for her business.

Says Lisa: “Lord Irving was in the kitchen with me most of the time during the preparation for this dinner. He was asking me questions about the food and he seemed blown away by what we were doing because our food is as much about amazing presentation as it is innovative food.

“On that evening, Cherie Blair was one of the guests and she kept asking who the caterer was and from then on I became the Lord Chancellor’s caterer and a recommended caterer for his private residence.”

Lisa did the catering for the Lord Chancellor for ten years, as well as working at various high society events, and then two years ago Hedgehog Pie was asked to do the catering for a private dinner for the Lord Chancellor and the Queen. As well as being a prestigious commission for Hedgehog Pie, the dinner also ignited Lisa’s interest in chocolate.

She says: “The starter was Scottish, the main course was Irish, the pudding was English and we did Welsh cheeses.

“We were told by one of the Queen’s ladies-in-waiting that Eton Mess was one of her favourite puddings so we tried to work out how we could serve an Eton Mess that didn’t look a mess. I came up with this idea of serving it in a handmade chocolate cup.

“You can buy chocolate cups from wholesalers but there was no way I was going to buy-in chocolate cups for the Queen so I made them. That’s where my intrigue in chocolate came from.“

Lisa started to research on the internet how to temper chocolate properly and went on a course with a chocolatier in Manchester.

“Over the past two years, I’ve become a huge chocophile and a real chocolate snob,” she says.

“I really know what’s good, what’s bad and why something’s good and why something’s bad. I felt I had so much to share that I came up with the idea of holding chocolate workshops.”

As well as showing people how to make their own chocolates, the workshops educate people about the vastly different flavours and textures to be found in handmade artisan chocolate compared to mass-produced varieties.

“We’re a nation who has grown up with Cadbury’s and Nestle, and we will always be drawn to that, but most of the traditional bars are simply made of sugar and vegetable fat.

“I start my tasting session by filling the table with bars of Cadbury’s, Bournville, Galaxy, Lindt and all the old favourites we’ve grown up with and then tasters of “real” chocolate made by artisan chocolatiers. It shows people how different “real” chocolate can be.

When Lisa says “real chocolate”, she means chocolate such as the French Valrhona chocolate and the bars made by top chocolatier Michel Cluizel.

Lisa’s workshop clients are shown how to taste chocolates, a process she likens to tasting wine.

“There’s a really serious process of how to taste chocolate. I give them tasting squares and I teach them how to taste it. I show them how to look at the texture, the colour, how to listen to “the snap” and encourage them to wait for it to melt in their mouth so all the taste buds are getting coated chocolate.

“It’s amazing how many people have got it unwrapped, into their mouths and swallowed before I’ve even started to explain the process, but it’s very exciting when somebody on the workshop really gets it and can genuinely taste different qualities.

“The thing about eating a really good quality chocolate is that you don’t need to eat too much of it because the flavour stays in your mouth for up to an hour.”

During the workshops, Lisa teaches people how to make a ganache and then they make hand-rolled fresh cream truffles. They are also taught how to enrobe something solid like a nut or marzipan using a dipping fork. Lisa uses the same equipment a professional chocolatier would use, but she shows her clients how to make the same chocolates at home - even using a microwave and hairdryer.

Lisa then teaches her clients how to fill the moulds to make the shell of the chocolate and then they choose a flavour for their fondant - flavours such as rhubarb, lime, basil, peppermint and lavender.

“It just makes me want to jump up and down and clap my hands when they unmould their chocolates. It is so exciting.

“They’re all there lined up, soldier fashion, and they have to smack the mould really hard on to the work surface and then hold up their moulds to see what has popped out. It’s just brilliant.

“A few people have eaten their chocolates before I’ve managed to look at them, but that’s allowed.”

And I’m sure even Willy Wonka would approve of that.