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Fun with chocolate
By jen | April 8, 2010
I’ve been taking a chocolate class for fun and have learned so much! There is so much that I didn’t know about chocolate, including how chocolate is processed, how the cocoa butter content affects the viscosity of melted chocolate, various methods of tempering chocolate (proper tempering is key to getting chocolate shiny and giving it its snap) and creative uses for chocolate. The great thing about this class is that I get to use dark chocolate (that is vegan).
Here are a couple things that I’ve made in the last few weeks:
My first project was making a chocolate box. I used red and gold colored cocoa butter to paint the design on mold for the lid of the box. I then tempered dark chocolate and filled both halves of the mold. I drained and scraped the excess chocolate from the molds and set them in the fridge to set. 15 minutes later, I unmolded the chocolate and put the two pieces together. And voila, I had a chocolate box!
Too pretty to eat!
We were also asked to create Easter chocolate using bunny and egg molds. I opted to use the large egg-shaped molds, but decided against doing more traditional designs. I looked at the shape thought “hmmm, how about penguins?” The difficulty for me was having to paint the design on the inside of the mold before pouring in the chocolate instead of painting on top of a finished piece, which is why the design is sloppier than I would have liked. I still think they’re pretty cute though!
Penguin Easter eggs -- a new trend in the making?
I’m tempted to purchase some molds for home use now!
Topics: Candy |
April 9th, 2010 at 8:15 PM
oh my gosh, those penguins look like they’d be so much fun to eat! i actually rather like the way you’ve painted them; they look more delicious that way. if they were painted too precisely, they’d look like plastic toys.
this makes me want to get into making my own chocolate!
April 9th, 2010 at 8:16 PM
p.s. i admire how you veganized easter by making penguins instead of bunnies or eggs. go team!