Chocolate art

We started this lesson with a tutorial on how to make our own molds by using gelatin. When using gelatin, either in powder form or gelatin sheets, the ratio is 1 to 5, meaning for every gram of gelatin you will have to add 5 grams of water. This ratio is if the gelatin is used for food. Of course it is possible to use more water, depending on how set you want the end product to be. 

For making molds the ratio is 1 to 4. The gelatin has to soak in the water and then cooked till it all dissolves. Then you fill a container with this and put the thing in you want a mold of. After it hardens you take the thing out and you'll have a mold. Since it's very sensitive to bacteria this mold can only be used once or twice. 

I have been using gelatin before, but never tried to make a mold. It looks like fun so I will surely give it a go. 

After the tutorial the group was split in two again and our group started with making hollow round and various shaped chocolate. Before we started we had a demo of how to do it. We were also shown how to make "wings", flower petals and eyes. We got to work with this nitrogen spray to make the chocolate stick to each other faster and work with colored cocoa butter. 

We worked in teams again and each team picked one round shaped mold and one other shape. Although they had different high heel shoes, Donald Duck, several different animals, we got a Christmas tree. it was a bit early for it, but it looked like fun to make one.

We started with tempering the white chocolate first. The chocolate has to be heated to 40-45C first and then 2/3 of the mixture was brought back to 25C. This mixed in with the 1/3 that was still in the bowl should come up at around 28C.

I used some green cocoa butter to color the two halves of the Christmas tree. After the butter has dried up (so when it wasn't shiny anymore) we poured all the white chocolate in the mold covering it all up. After tapping it, so all the air can come up, we let it sit for a minute or so before pouring the chocolate out. We wanted to have a hollow Christmas tree so the chocolate only has to cover the mold enough to fit the two halves together.

We totally forgot to brush it with a thin layer of white chocolate first before pouring everything in and since we thought about it after all the chocolate was in, there was not fixing it. Luckily it came out just fine. 

I also painted the inside of the round shaped mold with different colors and we did the same thing as with the Christmas tree.

After everything was set we "glued" the two halves together by heating up both sided and then press them together. 

Then we made some wings and flower petals. Both didn't came out great, but it wasn't a bad try for a first time. Although they weren't perfect, we used them anyway. My team mate even made two butterflies. They were so cute! 

After everything hardens it was time for some more creativity. We used some tempered chocolate to make everything stick on or on top of each other and with some of the "left  over" chocolate we just made decoration.

It was so much fun trying to "glue" things on each other and making something that no one knows what it is so you can call it art. 

We each made our own "art work" and there was enough chocolate for a third one, which luckily I got to take home.  

I am happy I have pictures of my art work, because slowly but surely they're disappearing. Who know art could be so good.