It's a Christmas tree made of chocolate! (From Bournemouth Echo)

It's a Christmas tree made of chocolate!

8:00am Sunday 23rd December 2012 in News

POOLE’S own Willy Wonka has constructed a two-foot high Christmas tree – made entirely of truffles.

Chocolatier Simon Rees, who works at Moni Cafe – formerly Nathans – in the High Street, spends hours of his own time creating his chocolate masterpieces at home.

The tree, made up of around 240 milk, dark and mint chocolate truffles, took the best part of a week to complete, and will be raffled for the Cash for Kids charity.

Proprietor Gordon Dodd, who owns the cafe with Monika Heinrich, said: “We don’t really go in for big, cheesy Christmas decorations here.

“We like it to be cosy instead. But we started to think we’d like a centrepiece for the window, and that’s how this all came about.

“It seemed a real waste for it only to be used for a decoration, so we’re raffling it off for a local good cause.”

The charity supports children in the area, who are financially, socially, emotionally or physically disadvantaged.

Mr Rees said: “I started making chocolate three years ago.

“I saw something on the TV and thought to myself, ‘I could do that’.