go to the website how tocookthat.net Today we are looking at chocolate decorations

that you can use to jazz up your desserts or 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 actual designs you can print out the template which

is on the website and place some baking paper over the top. and here I've just put some

chocolate in a plastic bag and just twisted it 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 into your icing, your chocolate mousse or your

dessert and you have all of your design on top. There are several different designs that

you can use, just follow the templates just like shown to do all of your different designs.

And the final one you just do a skinny oval followed by a shorter fatter one , shorter

fatter circle and then stem again if you want to 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 the back of the leaf so that it looks like the

front of the leaf when it is peeled off. Make sure the leaves are washed and fully dried

so you don't have any water on it and also make sure they are not from a plant that has

been sprayed with any insecticide or pesticide obviously. When you are spreading your chocolate

on try not to let it go around the front of the leaf because it makes it hard to peel

off. Once they have been set in the freezer just gently peel back the leaf and you'll

see that you can see all of the veining and all 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 to do. 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 over the mat, then using a knife or palette knife

spread it out make sure it goes into all of the little divets. Then get the excess chocolate

and scrape it back into the bowl. It's important here that you get off all of the excess chocolate

otherwise obviously you are going to get that marbled smeared effect of the chocolate that

is not in the divets, so just put it flat on the bench and give it a few more scrapes

to make sure you've got all of the excess off. Then pop that in the freezer until it

is set. And put your contrasting chocolate over the top. Now the trick here is not to

mix it around as you are spreading it because obviously that warm chocolate on top is quickly

going to melt the small amount of chocolate that is in the spirals. So you want to very

gently spread it out with the minimum amount of mixing it around. Once you've got it spread

then use your palette knife to thin it down to the thickness you want your patterned chocolate

to be. Then put that in the freezer to set and gently and carefully peel off the chocolate

and there you have your two toned chocolate design 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 using a stanley knife or xacto knife Then place

your baking paper that has the circels cut out of it onto some aluminium foil. There

is two ways of doing this you can simply use a spoon and drizzle some across like that

or if you want it to be more of an exact thing put some in the piping bag like you used for

piping designs earlier and just scribble it across, you'll get the most strength if you

scribble it in three directions just gives you a bit more strength. Continue to do that

until all of your circles are covered and then just lift your baking paper off while

your chocolate is still melted before it's set. And then pop those in the freezer

and once they are nice and firm you can just peel them off the aluminium foil and you have

a fancy looking lace circle. Thank you for watching don't forget top click to subscribe

and watch one of the other videos, particularly the one on how to temper chocolate if you

don't temper chocolate then it doesn't stay solid at room temperature and after you have

gone to the trouble of making beautiful decorations you want them to stay standing when you serve

them to the table. And check out the other videos on chocolate decorations too.