Welcome to How To Cook That, I'm Ann Reardon and today we're making chocolate decorations
that you can use on top of cakes or desserts to take them from simple to stunning in a
few seconds.
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The first chocolate decoration we are going to make is the wave.
To make this cool effect spread some tempered chocolate out onto a piece of bench-top that
has been in the freezer overnight.
If you have a piece of marble you can use that - I don't, so I am just using a piece
of Corian benchtop that I got from a kitchen place.
It's just an off-cut, you should be able to get one of those from there.
The chocolate going to set up really quickly obviously because the bench top piece is cold.
Then you want to cut down the sides and remove those bits.
Then cut the base off to make a straight line.
Now cutting from the corner make a diagonal so you have a long triangle.
Pick it up off the cold and then form a wave, just gently molding it with your fingers to
bend it how you want it.
This is that really magical moment when chocolate is not solid and it is not liquid, it is at
that point in between where it is starting to set but it is still flexible so you can
make these wave shapes.
Once the chocolate does set completely it will be firm and you can put it on your cake
or dessert.
To make a hollow chocolate ball like this one, take a metal or marble rolling pin that
has been in the freezer for several hours and drizzle it with chocolate using your piping
bag, making sure you go diagonally.
So go one way diagonal, then turn the other way diagonal and then straight up and down
as well so that it's got some strength to it.
And you just want to let the edges drip off there.
Leave that for just a few seconds then start to loosen it off the rolling pin.
Once the whole thing is free, lift it off very carefully, put it on some non-stick baking
paper and gently bend it around onto itself so that the ends meet up and it forms a ball.
This would look great if you hid something special in the middle here let me know in
the comments what you think would look good inside.
Then you'll want to leave that in the fridge to firm up.
Using a similar technique you can also make this inside out.
Pipe some chocolate over a rolling pin.
Now if you are using a metal rolling pin like me it needs to go back in the freezer each
time for a couple of hours.
It just doesn't stay cold enough because the metal comes back up to room temperature very
quickly.
Give it a few lines up and down the rolling pin as well for this one.
Then wait a couple of seconds and loosen that chocolate from the rolling pin like we did
before.
Then place a cookie cutter at one end and roll it up.
You can do so many things with chocolate when it is in this magical bendy state, I love it.
Slide it carefully onto a tray and place that in the fridge to set firmly.
Once it is set, just gently ease the cookie cutter out of the centre and there it is.
Next we have chocolate spirals.
To make these spread your tempered chocolate onto the piece of bench top that has been
in the freezer.
Then draw a straight line down each of the edges to make it nice and neat.
Then use a ruler to cut strips of the same width.
For all of these decorations we are using real chocolate and that's chocolate that contains
cocoa butter.
If you look at the ingredients on the packet and it contains vegetable fat then it's not
real chocolate and it's not going to work in the same way as this does.
You need to get some chocolate that has cocoa butter in it and you need to temper it.
I have a video called "Chocolate Secrets" that I'll link you to the end that shows you
how to do that if you haven't seen that one yet.
Lift up your strips, stacking them on top of each other.
Once you've got them all turn them onto the side and then start to curl them from one
end, just making a circle there and then spiralling it around.
And with the very ends of them just let them fan out there.
Place that in the fridge and then once it is firm, you can leave it just like that or
you can rearrange it by lifiting the middle up, just give it a little bit of a jiggle
there, and leave it sitting a little bit higher.
Or you can take it out altogether and have individual spirals on your desserts.
Next for a Paper-thin Splat effect that you can use either under your dessert when you're
plating or on top if you like.
Place some baking paper onto a cake turntable and add some tempered chocolate that's been
thinned down using a little bit of extra cocoa butter.
Spin the cake turntable as fast as you can...
Making sure that you stop as soon as you see it getting to the edges otherwise you're going
to splatter yourself and your kitchen with chocolate.
Once that's set you can use it how you like.
I've also got lots of chocolate decorations in my other dessert videos like this chocolate
spiral that I've shown you how to make.
If you want me to re-film them and put them all into the one chocolate decoration video
let me know in the comments below and I'll do that for you.
Make it a great week and I'll see you on Friday.