welcome to howtocookthat.net i am ann reardonfor a printable copy of any of the recipes go to the website how tocookthat.nettoday we are looking at chocolate decorations that you can use to jazz up your dessertsor 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 actualdesigns you can print out the template which is on the website and place some baking paperover the top. and here i've just put some chocolate in a plastic bag and just twistedit 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 intoyour icing, your chocolate mousse or your
dessert and you have all of your design ontop. there are several different designs that you can use, just follow the templates justlike shown to do all of your different designs. and the final one you just do a skinny ovalfollowed by a shorter fatter one , shorter fatter circle and then stem again if you wantto 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 theback of the leaf so that it looks like the front of the leaf when it is peeled off. makesure the leaves are washed and fully dried so you don't have any water on it and alsomake sure they are not from a plant that has been sprayed with any insecticide or pesticideobviously. when you are spreading your chocolate
on try not to let it go around the front ofthe leaf because it makes it hard to peel off. once they have been set in the freezerjust gently peel back the leaf and you'll see that you can see all of the veining andall 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 todo. 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 overthe mat, then using a knife or palette knife spread it out make sure it goes into all ofthe little divets. then get the excess chocolate
and scrape it back into the bowl. it's importanthere that you get off all of the excess chocolate otherwise obviously you are going to get thatmarbled smeared effect of the chocolate that is not in the divets, so just put it flaton the bench and give it a few more scrapes to make sure you've got all of the excessoff. then pop that in the freezer until it is set. and put your contrasting chocolateover the top. now the trick here is not to mix it around as you are spreading it becauseobviously that warm chocolate on top is quickly going to melt the small amount of chocolatethat is in the spirals. so you want to very gently spread it out with the minimum amountof mixing it around. once you've got it spread then use your palette knife to thin it downto the thickness you want your patterned chocolate
to be. then put that in the freezer to setand gently and carefully peel off the chocolate and there you have your two toned chocolatedesign 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 usinga stanley knife or xacto knife then place your baking paper that has the circels cutout of it onto some aluminium foil. there is two ways of doing this you can simply usea spoon and drizzle some across like that or if you want it to be more of an exact thingput some in the piping bag like you used for piping designs earlier and just scribble itacross, you'll get the most strength if you scribble it in three directions just givesyou a bit more strength. continue to do that
until all of your circles are covered andthen just lift your baking paper off while your chocolate is still melted before it'sset. and then pop those in the freezer and once they are nice and firm you can justpeel them off the aluminium foil and you have a fancy looking lace circle. thank you forwatching don't forget top click to subscribe and watch one of the other videos, particularlythe one on how to temper chocolate if you don't temper chocolate then it doesn't staysolid at room temperature and after you have gone to the trouble of making beautiful decorationsyou want them to stay standing when you serve them to the table. and check out the othervideos on chocolate decorations too.