Chocolate Sculptures

From time to time one of our Chefs will create a chocolate sculpture and display it in the front window of the school for all to see and admire.  While the sculptures are always incredibly detailed and impressive I often feel like the Chefs may have cheated a little by using wood, marble, or glue to support the sculpture or even just keep it together.  I'm also always awed by the flowers they create, but wonder why they then make leaves out of plastic or other materials.  On Thursday I had all of my questions answered.

A dark chocolate box sculpture full
of truffles by Chef Tranchant

Chef Christian Faure has been visiting us from Le Cordon Bleu Ottawa for the past few weeks and last week he offered an optional demo on chocolate sculptures.  I attended and was completely blown away by what I learned.  When we arrived he already had a huge sculpture on display and told us he was going to show us how it was made.  The sculpture was sitting on a piece of marbled granite, supported by a large, vertical wooden circle and held up further by a piece of carved wood painted with chocolate.  On top of the sculpture was a huge flower sitting on a red and orange plastic leaf and topped with a chocolate sphere to symbolize the sun.  At least that is what I thought I saw when I initially looked at the sculpture.

Boy was I wrong!  The ENTIRE sculpture was made of chocolate and Chef Faure showed us piece by piece how he made it.  Keep in mind when you look at my photos, I was up close and personal with this sculpture and still had trouble believing it was all chocolate.

Chef Faure showed us that the leaves are tempered dark chocolate layered with tempered white chocolate layered with more tempered white chocolate that has been mixed with food coloring.  The "wooden" circle and the swirly piece of "wood" supporting the sculpture from the bottom are solid pieces of chocolate that are set and then brushed with a metal brush that you'd use to clean an outdoor grill to give the chocolate a weathered looking texture.  Finally the most impressive part of the sculpture was the base.  What appeared to be a nice cut square of marble or granite that could have come directly from my kitchen counter was actually chocolate as well!  The marble texture was created by chopping up milk, dark, and white chunks of chocolate, placing them in a mold and combining them with melted hot cocoa butter.  Very, very impressive!

Here are a few of the photos of the very exciting demonstration.

A piece of "Granite" made of chocolate

Chef Faure layering the chocolate for the leaves.

Chef Faure applying a fine spray of a water and
red food coloring mixture to his chocolate flower.

A side view of Chef Faure's sculpture.

The delicate chocolate flower and leaves.

The flower with such real looking petals.

The leaf with knife etchings to give it texture.

The "marble" base of the sculpture.

A swirl of chocolate covered in gold dust.

Chef Faure's finished sculpture made completely of
chocolate with 2 raw cocoa bean pods sitting next to it.

Chef Faure and me with my signed edition of France's Best Recipes Cookbook.

Until next time Au Revoir and Bon Appetit!