Organic Chocolate Nativity scene

The story of the Chocolate Nativity Scene

By Daniel Durig

My father, who was a chocolatier, once found a beautiful carved wooden mould about 25 cm wide. The mould, which was from the city of Basel and dated from the 1700s was used for making traditional Christmas biscuits and shows the nativity scene beneath the soft light of the Star. In the stable Mary and Joseph hold a lantern over the cradle where the baby Jesus rests on a bed of straw. A donkey and a cow lean over the other side of the cradle where one of the wise men and a shepherd kneel.

My father had four moulds made so he could create the same scene from chocolate, and I remember seeing, as a child of 5 or 6, that chocolate nativity scene under the Christmas tree.

Today I am happy to continue making that chocolate Nativity scene, with my father’s same four moulds and to imagine them under the Christmas tree of other families.