Chocolate decorations

This week we started chocolate sculpture and decorations with Chef Bob. The picture you see here is a flower (a rose, I guess) made of dark chocolate.

To make the flower petals, you spread a thin layer of dark tempered chocolate on the table. When it begins to set, you scrape a piece of curved metal over the chocolate to create petals from about 2-4" long. If you hold your scraper at a higher angle, you can get a tighter piece, like the one I used to create the center.

Once you have a bunch of petals, you can start assembling the flower. I started with the tight cone for the center, then gradually worked my way outward using larger petals, "gluing" it all together with more chocolate. Again, I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. I'll be using the piece at the end of the week when I assemble my final chocolate showpiece.