- Do people ever ask you if you're like Willy Wonka?
Is it like the magical sensation?
- That guy is a fake.
That guy doesn't make any chocolates.
I am the real Willy Wonka,
don't start with him, he's a fake!
- Today we're working with chocolate
and we're not just working with any chocolatier,
we're working with the king of chocolate,
Jacques Torres.
We're in his factory
where he's gonna show us some really cool techniques.
- We're going to do a centerpiece first.
We're going to build a centerpiece about,
I don't know, two and a half feet tall,
and then we're going to make some flowers.
Three different kinds of flower,
some leaves, some butterfly,
and we're going to assemble all that together.
We're going to do some type of marbled chocolates
and then we're going to do the flowers,
then leaf, butterfly,
and then we assemble everything together and done.
Then you go home!
- Voila.
Alright, great.
- So the dark chocolate is 62% dark chocolate.
So 62% means 62% of the...
In the chocolate 62% comes from the cacao,
the rest is sugar.
- [Rebecca] So how much chocolate
are you using in your factory?
- [Jacques] A year we use about 150 ton of chocolates,
which is quite a bit of chocolate.
Oh you do it fancy!
(Rebecca laughs)
So the way to do it is to put some dark chocolate here,
just glue it this way.
Move right and left,
and it should hold.
- Oh wonderful.
- Should.
Okay, then we're going to do another one here.
We do the same.
- [Rebecca] Are we not freezing it
because you need flexibility in case...
- [Jacques] Yes in case we have a problem, you know,
I want to move it.
Then now I'm putting chocolate here,
and then I'm going to glue this one.
Let's start with...
We're going to put this one here.
When you put a centerpiece together
remember that you look at the balance.
The balance is very important.
- Yes.
That's the first one?
- That's the first one,
the little, the center of the flower.
- Okay.
Then the other one,
that's the leaf that's going to go around that,
so we're going to it a little bit bigger.
If it doesn't work close your ear.
So the air doesn't come out. - What do you mean?
(Rebecca laughs)
- I'm going to try something new.
I'm going to dip it here first,
and then I'm going to dip it here second,
and hopefully we see some of the red.
Maybe, maybe not.
So, you see it keep going.
- Yeah.
- So this is the first one and I want the drip
because the drip going to be on the other side
so the center of the flower going to go up.
- Okay.
- Now, the next one I'm going to use a spoon
and I'm going to put some red chocolate here
that's going to be inside the leaf.
Pardon, the petal.
- [Rebecca] Are we using a liquid food coloring or powder?
- [Jacques] So actually it's a powder
and the reason is chocolate doesn't mix with liquid,
with water-base.
Chocolate mix with actually oil-base
so you can use oil-base but not water-base color.
(upbeat music)
So, we're going to pop this one very lightly.
You don't want that to explode,
you just want to make a little hole.
And then I'm going to remove...
And I'm not going to touch the top I touch just the bottom
because I want that to stay the way it is, like that.
(Rebecca gasps)
Okay?
Now we're going to use three petal,
- [Rebecca] Okay.
- [Jacques] and we're going to glue them
on the bottom here.
Okay you can use the cold spray.
Tiny bit more.
Okay so, what we're going to do,
I'm going to show you and you can do it.
You start next to the flower and you do a pass,
then you turn it.
Okay, go ahead again.
Okay it's enough.
- [Rebecca] What would you say is your philosophy
in becoming a chocolatier?
- [Jacques] I come from a small city in the south of France.
So I know the fisherman who sell the fish on the market,
I know the butcher.
I mean I know, I can put a face behind
pretty much any product that my mom was buying in Bandol.
So when I came to U.S., that doesn't exist here anymore,
you don't put the face behind the product,
it's very different.
So when I opened my first business, I put a big window,
and I was behind the window making the chocolates.
And I want people to say,
"It's actually Jacques Torres who make the chocolates."
And they can tell me what they want.
So to me that was very important.
- [Rebecca] Do people do these showpieces anymore?
- [Jacques] Very rarely.
- Did you like chocolate before you started working with it?
- Actually, you know it's a funny question
because I remember that my mom used to buy those...
You know those big box of chocolates
where you're more packaging than chocolate?
(Rebecca laughs)
You know supermarket chocolate?
- Yeah.
- And to bite into those chocolates,
and when one was full of that fondant,
sugar fondant with fruit flavor,
I hate it.
But when I hit one of those with almonds and hazelnuts,
oh my god that was so good.
So I remember that was the flavor that I want.
So that's my only memory with eating chocolate.
Okay we're going to let that dry a little bit
and it's ready for assembly, okay?
So my guess is, flower, maybe flower here.
- Yeah.
- Huh?
- Yeah.
Do you want it right there?
- No, It's not going to hold.
(Rebecca gasps)
- I didn't do it.
Okay the butterfly fly, but we still have a centerpiece.
- Less is more.
- Yeah, less is more, you're right.
(Rebecca laughs)
- I mean ideally, a showpiece like this
takes more than just one day, more than six hours.
- You know, I actually can do it relatively fast.
I would certainly put it together in a small,
you know, colder environment,
maybe in the packaging room
because it's a little bit colder,
piece will hold a little bit faster.
- Right.
- So I would work differently,
but you know on the whole it's...
When you do something for show
it's always a little bit different.
- Yes.
- And then we encounter some
little problems. - Challenges.
- But you did great, thank you very much.
You know, that was a... - No, thank you so much.
- You've been a good help
and I hope that you learned a few techniques--
- Definitely.
- Along the way.
- Always a pleasure.
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