Welcome to howtocookthat.net I am Ann Reardon for a printable copy of any of the recipes
go to the website how tocookthat.net Today we are looking at chocolate decorations
that you can use to jazz up your desserts or your cupcakes.
First of all we will look at piped designs, these are one of the easiest things to do
but if you are not confident in the actual designs you can print out the template which
is on the website and place some baking paper over the top.
and here I've just put some chocolate in a plastic bag and just twisted it at the top
so that when you apply pressure it doesn't come out the other end.
And with my designs I like to add a stem to the bottom so that you can stick that into
your icing, your chocolate mousse or your dessert and you have all of your design on
top.
There are several different designs that you can use, just follow the templates just like
shown to do all of your different designs.
And the final one you just do a skinny oval followed by a shorter fatter one , shorter
fatter circle and then stem again if you want to be able to stick it in to a cupcake or
chocolate mouse whatever you are making.
Next chocolate leaves, these just use any leaf from the garden you want to paint the
back of the leaf so that it looks like the front of the leaf when it is peeled off.
Make sure the leaves are washed and fully dried so you don't have any water on it and
also make sure they are not from a plant that has been sprayed with any insecticide or pesticide
obviously.
When you are spreading your chocolate on try not to let it go around the front of the leaf
because it makes it hard to peel off.
Once they have been set in the freezer just gently peel back the leaf and you'll see that
you can see all of the veining and all of the pattern from the leaf comes out onto your
chocolate and looks great.
Next we will look at two toned chocolate patterns I really like these and they are simple to
do.
You just need a texture mat which these ones I've got from a childs rubbings book, you
can get all different ones quite cheaply that way in the one book.
Get some white chocolate, spread it out over the mat, then using a knife or palette knife
spread it out make sure it goes into all of the little divets.
Then get the excess chocolate and scrape it back into the bowl.
It's important here that you get off all of the excess chocolate otherwise obviously you
are going to get that marbled smeared effect of the chocolate that is not in the divets,
so just put it flat on the bench and give it a few more scrapes to make sure you've
got all of the excess off.
Then pop that in the freezer until it is set.
And put your contrasting chocolate over the top.
Now the trick here is not to mix it around as you are spreading it because obviously
that warm chocolate on top is quickly going to melt the small amount of chocolate that
is in the spirals.
So you want to very gently spread it out with the minimum amount of mixing it around.
Once you've got it spread then use your palette knife to thin it down to the thickness you
want your patterned chocolate to be.
Then put that in the freezer to set and gently and carefully peel off the chocolate and there
you have your two toned chocolate design then you can snap that into pieces, stick it into
desserts.
Next some chocolate lace circles using a cup draw a circle shape then cut around it using
a stanley knife or xacto knife Then place your baking paper that has the circels cut
out of it onto some aluminium foil.
There is two ways of doing this you can simply use a spoon and drizzle some across like that
or if you want it to be more of an exact thing put some in the piping bag like you used for
piping designs earlier and just scribble it across, you'll get the most strength if you
scribble it in three directions just gives you a bit more strength.
Continue to do that until all of your circles are covered and then just lift your baking
paper off while your chocolate is still melted before it's set.
And then pop those in the freezer and once they are nice and firm you can just
peel them off the aluminium foil and you have a fancy looking lace circle.
Thank you for watching don't forget top click to subscribe and watch one of the other videos,
particularly the one on how to temper chocolate if you don't temper chocolate then it doesn't
stay solid at room temperature and after you have gone to the trouble of making beautiful
decorations you want them to stay standing when you serve them to the table.
And check out the other videos on chocolate decorations too.