Things you can craft from chocolate
Chocolate doesn’t just have to be consumed in the simple bar form, as chocolatiers around the world have been proving for years with creations that turn this sweet treat into a genuine artistic masterpiece. This article will look at some of the best things to be crafted out of chocolate.
1. A Camera
Given that most people who manage to construct something amazing out of chocolate will want to take a picture to upload to Instagram, there is some irony in choosing to make a camera. If you want to get all the little details in there, from the lens to the shutter, this will not be the easiest chocolate model to make. You should aim for roughly the size of an actual camera – for added realism. It is the level of detailing and the shaping skills required that make for an impressive result here.
This is another piece where you should aim to make it roughly the size of a standard chessboard. Use a mixture of normal milk and white chocolate for both the pieces and the board – and the combination of the two makes this look amazing. The board’s base is relatively easy as it just needs to be a square block with brown and white chocolate squares, but the chess pieces will be trickier. The best way to handle this intricate modelling is to buy moulds, pour the melted chocolate into them, put them in the fridge until they turn solid and you will have your pieces. Or if that seems like cheating, melt the chocolate, add a 1/3 cup of corn syrup, chill overnight and then try moulding as with clay.
3.Ladbrokes Chocolate roulette wheel
Like the chessboard, the different colours make this a visual spectacular. You need about 60kg of chocolate, and with 438 separately modelled pieces it is a complex undertaking. You can use plastic moulds for the outside and inside rings, and a polycarbonate one to create the mini chocolate bars used for deflectors, frets etc. The pockets in-between them should be hand-cut from sheets of chocolate poured by hand, with support from another layer of chocolate below. Finally, the colours are painted by hand using edible gold lustre and cocoa butter. All in n all you are looking at approximately three days of work, but a great finished result.
4. A Toolkit
This is something that will only require one colour and a lot less of it (unless you plan on making the box as well). The difficulty – and impressiveness – here lies in sculpting all of the different shaped tools from your melted chocolate. If you don’t feel capable of this at first, the moulds approach may be best, but don’t worry you can always eat the evidence of any early failures while you are learning the craft.
Chocolate sculpting is becoming very popular, so why not put your skills to the test and try some of these designs at home.