Actually, there were several topics initially, but after spending half a day in the kitchen, I realized that many of you are unlikely to repeat this. Because on this day everything should be easy, beautiful and at ease. Although, if you are busy in the kitchen and bring your girlfriend a culinary masterpiece, then you will be forgiven for mountains of dirty dishes and a spoiled frying pan. And girls… girls will easily cope with this ;)
So, in order for you to get beautiful chocolate leaves in addition to the cake you bought or, like me, to pancakes, you will need: white chocolate, dark chocolate, medium-sized leaves (from 2 cm to 3.5 cm) and a brush. The leaves must necessarily be "alive", that is, from a living plant. By no means dried! I first tried the leaves of lavrushka and realized that this is not a good idea. The next subjects were small rose leaves and everything turned out great! Even small streaks were visible.
Plus, I decided to try to make small chocolate hearts — I just cut out small hearts from cardboard and also covered them with chocolate. Unfortunately, it didn't work out as well with them as with rose leaves, but it's also quite interesting. I think if you cut them out of baking paper, the result will be better. But I just didn't have enough time to test this option as well.
Let's get to work!
1. Melt the chocolate in a water bath or in the microwave. Don't overdo it with white chocolate! If you overheat, it will go in lumps. So it's better to melt white chocolate in a steam bath after all.
2. Take freshly plucked leaves of small size, pre-washed and even passed some heat treatment (I poured boiling water over them). It is desirable that the veins stand out as much as possible. Spread the melted chocolate carefully with a small brush (I took a regular synthetic brush for watercolor) on the wrong side of the sheet, that is, the one on which the veins stand out. Try to smear so that the chocolate does not fall on the other side, otherwise it will be difficult to separate the sheet later. The layer should not be very thin, otherwise the chocolate will simply break.
3. Place the plate with the leaves in the freezer for at least 30 minutes.
4. Take out the leaves and carefully separate the chocolate from them. Store the finished chocolate leaves in the freezer or in the refrigerator.
Separating chocolate from cardboard hearts turned out to be more difficult than separating it from leaves. But if you gently pry with a knife, then everything will work out. The experiment with bay leaves was a fiasco — the leaves practically did not bend, constantly broke and the chocolate broke with them. Therefore, do not regret and buy at least one small sprig of small roses (there are several flowers on one stem). These leaves are perfect for this job. I also tried to work with rose petals, but then it is very difficult to separate them from chocolate. They do not break, but simply leave almost completely their bottom layer on the chocolate. An attempt to separate it ended with a complete breakdown of the chocolate petal. And it's a pity — it was very beautiful.
If you have small ornamental trees at home, then their leaves are also quite suitable. The main thing is patience and accuracy!
These petals and hearts can decorate pancakes in the shape of hearts. There are two options: cut a heart out of a simple pancake or use a special mold for scrambled eggs from Buttlers. Scrambled eggs in the shape of a heart, by the way, is also quite suitable. You can use a mold, or you can cut it yourself ;)
Photo report on how it all happened:
And what happened as a result:
And this miracle is a heart of Buttlers and scrambled eggs.
I hope that you will succeed!
