Melt your chocolate in the microwave or double boiler. Now, is where you get to be creative. If you are making a particular shape like a leaf, you can use actual leaves (washed and dried of course) as your template. Use a pastry brush to paint the leaves with the melted chocolate. Let them harden on a piece of parchment paper. Once ready, peel them away from the leaf.

For cutouts, spread your melted chocolate on a cookie sheet covered with parchment paper. Be sure that the chocolate is smoothed out so there are no bumps or uneven areas. Once the chocolate has set up, you can use your cookie cutters to press the shapes. Starting with the ones closest to the edge of the parchment, peel them up and place them on your cake, cupcakes or wherever you need them.

Some shapes require a more delicate touch than a pastry brush. For those, you can use melted chocolate in a pastry piping bag. This bag is used with different tips to make decorations with icing. If you don’t have a pastry bag, you can use a Ziploc bag and cut a small hole in the bottom corner or one end.

The chocolate will be warm so be careful. If you are tracing shapes, draw them darkly on one side a piece of parchment paper. Flip it over and make sure you can still see the image. Cut the corner of the bag (if not using a piping bag) and begin to trace the shapes with the chocolate. Try to make as thick a line as the design will allow. Thinner chocolate pieces are more prone to breaking when peeling and placing. The piping bag can also be used to apply melted chocolate designs to the tops of cakes, cookies, muffins, pies and the like.

Chocolate has many uses even decorating. Turn your desserts into a feast for the eyes and the taste buds by decorating in chocolate.

Chocolate has many uses. Many of them require that you get the chocolate in a more pliable mood. That means melting chocolate. Before you cringe, it is easy to melt chocolate as long as you follow a few simple rules:

·         Cut chocolate into smaller uniform pieces

·         Melt over low heat

·         Stir often

·         Use a double boiler (even a makeshift one is better than nothing) or the microwave

It takes a while for chocolate to melt.  But, just as quickly as it melts it will also set up again once away from heat. With that in mind, if you are using molds for your chocolate creations, have them ready to go.

Like we said, chocolate doesn’t take long to solidify once it is removed from the heat. So, you have to get working. One thing that you will need is parchment paper. Parchment paper provides a non-stick surface for your chocolate shapes.

The Conundrum

Cravings usually begin in the brain. Whether real or imaginary, self or chemically induced, they are a fact of life. That’s our story anyway and we’re sticking to it. Chocolate does contain substances that mimic the effects of endorphins. Those are the “feel good” substances that we get from sexual contact and also exercise.

Since the cocoa bean is the source of the antioxidants and other beneficial compounds, it would stand to reason that eating a purer chocolate would fuel cravings right? Actually the opposite is true. Eating darker chocolate has been shown to reduce cravings. While it is chocolate, darker chocolate is less sweet than the candy bar variety we usually eat. It takes less to fill us up and keep us satisfied.

With milk chocolate, there are other ingredients added. You have sugar, milk, added fats and other little odds and ends. It can be theorized that we are addicted to the sugar and fat instead of the chocolate itself. It’s just a coincidence that when combined with chocolate, these other things have a wonderful taste that we can’t seem to get enough of.

The chocolate that people eat to satisfy their cravings is indeed milk chocolate or other varieties that have a low percentage of cocoa solids in them. That could also be another reason why our beautiful craving leaves us wider around the middle. But, that’s another story.

So, why do we crave chocolate? Experts say it has nothing to do with chocolate itself physiologically. We see chocolate advertised for most major holidays in some form or fashion so our brains say different.

Have you ever heard someone say that they just have to have chocolate at certain times? Maybe they are stressed or wanting something sweet. The first food they reach for is made of chocolate. There is a reason and a good one (besides loving it intensely).

In recent years, chocolate has been studied as more than just a satisfying dessert fare. Researchers have found that chocolate also has health benefits. Eating dark chocolate can help reduce cholesterol and high blood pressure.

You don’t need much. About an ounce of chocolate a day will help you receive these benefits without packing on the pounds. And, this is best accomplished with dark chocolate. It contains the highest percentage of cocoa. This is where the benefits derive – the cocoa bean.

The cocoa bean contains antioxidants. The specific one is a flavonoid called flavonol. As we know, antioxidants do wonders for the body. They combat the signs of aging on the inside so we look and live better on the outside.

How it all begins

Cacao trees produce large fruit pods on the trunk of the tree. The pods are harvested with machetes. When you crack them open, you’ll find about fifty or more seeds within a sweet pulp. The pulp and the cocoa beans are removed and placed in buckets for fermentation.

Depending on the type of cacao tree and the manufacturer, the process can take a week or longer. Fermentation gives the beans some semblance of the chocolate taste we like. Once the fermentation process is complete, the cocoa beans are spread out so that they can dry naturally in the sun.

It is the dried beans that are shipped to chocolate manufacturers all over the world. Once there, the beans are roasted, much like coffee beans. Roasting intensifies the final taste of the chocolate.

When the beans are ready, the shells are then removed. What you are left with is the essence of the bean – cocoa butter and other chocolate solids. A machine grounds the shelled beans into a paste that is referred to as chocolate liquor even though it is not a liquid or contains alcohol. From here, it is a magical process, if you will, that varies from manufacturer to manufacturer.

Even though some of the ingredients are trade secrets, the process is quite similar. The chocolate paste goes through a machine that removes the cocoa butter. This leaves you with a powdery cocoa. Substances like cocoa butter (re-added), sugar, milk, oil and the like are added to reconstitute the powder into chocolate.

The last step in chocolate making is conching. The chocolate is mixed in a large machine until it is the consistency the manufacturer likes. After, the chocolate is poured into molds, allowed to cool, wrapped up and then packaged for shipment.