Introduction

Hello, my name is Elizabeth and I am a patisserie school student and aspiring apprentice for any local chef who will have me. I live in Brisbane, have three cats, four birds and am a major foodie. The irony about me is I don't like eating much - I like creating. I will bake an entire cake only to eat half a slice, and then bake another cake once I get bored with that. I love flavours so much I can't stand spending too long just trying one!

I decided an intro to a blog is boring, so I am going to discuss how to make something very simple: triangular decorative chocolate curls. Like these:


First off, you're going to need to purchase either a decorative chocolate transfer, or a plastic sheet designed to be reused over and over with a decorative design on one side. Sadly I cannot find the location to purchase the latter, nor do I know the proper name, but here is a good link to a site that sells the transfer sheets: http://www.fancyflours.com/site/chocolate-transfer-sheets.html

If using decorative reusable sheets, use eating-safe colour powders and brush the surface of your sheet to decorate. Or use food colouring melted into chocolate to splatter a design onto your board.

After you've tempered your chocolate (which I will be explaining in a future post) you will need to spread the chocolate as THINLY as possible on your transfer. Using a chocolate palette knife, make sure there are no bubbles and the surface becomes a tad dull. Quickly, using a ruler or premade plastic sheet with the lines already predone, divine the chocolate vertically into even parts, depending on the thickness you want. Then cut again horizontally in as long of strips as possible.. depending on length you want. Then place the same sheet an an angle and cut again.

Your sections should look like this:

(MSPaint for the win)

Roll up your work and tape shut, placing into your freezer until ready.

Once ready to use, unroll and break apart your little triangles apart very carefully. Eat as is, serve as is or use to decorate cakes such as this chocolate brownie coffee cake I made in class:



That's it for now. Just something simple to whet your appetetite!