Ruffled Chocolate Fans

This is an elegant decoration for the sides of a cake or a great topping on some ice cream.  The technique takes a little practice to master, but the fans can be made several weeks in advance and kept in the refrigerator for when you need them.  The tails can be cut off before placing on a cake, or used to stick into ice cream.

Ingredients:
1) Several (about 12) ounces of dark chocolate.  I use Ghirardelli Semi-Sweet.  It is available at my grocery store and costs about $2.59 for a 4 ounce bar.  You will need 1 bar per batch.  Use anything from milk chocolate up to 70% cacao.
2) One bar of each contrasting chocolate.  This can be white or milk chocolate.  (optional)

Equipment:
1) At least one aluminum cookie sheet.  It must not have a special coating or non-stick surface.
2) 2 cookie sheets or trays lined with parchment or wax paper for finished work
3) 8" offset metal spatula
4) Bench scraper
5) Large frying pan with lid
6) Instant read thermometer
7) Heat resistant rubber spatula
8) Sharp knife for cutting chocolate

Offset spatula and bench scraper on aluminum cookie sheet.

1) The first step is to make room in your refrigerator for the aluminum cookie sheet and the cookie sheet for your finished work.

2) Fill the large frying pan about 1/2 full of water and bring to a boil.

3) While waiting for the water to boil, break up your chocolate while still in the wrapper and place in a small pot or metal bowl.

4) Put the heat on the lowest setting and place your bowl in the water.

5) Stir with a heat resistant spatula until almost melted.  Remove from water bath.  Any small chunks will melt from the heat of the surrounding chocolate.

6) With the dark chocolate set aside, repeat the process for the contrasting color if you are doing one.  Note that white chocolate can overheat very easily.  I usually turn off the heat completely and even throw a few ice cubes into the water bath.

7) IMPORTANT: Warm your aluminum cookie sheet by moving it back and forth over one of your stove top burners.  Get it fairly warm, but not enough to burn you.  I skipped this step and ended up wasting a lot of time and ingredients because the chocolate splinters.

8) Pour about 1/3 of a cup (1 bar) of the melted chocolate on the warm cookie sheet.  Using the offset spatula, spread it out evenly.  It should be roughly the thickness of a sheet of construction paper.  A little thinner or thicker is fine.  The main thing is that you are aiming for consistency.  Hold the spatula as shown here.

9) If you are not doing a contrasting color, immediately put the aluminum cookie sheet in the refrigerator for a minimum of 1 hour.  

10)  If you are doing a contrasting color, warm it up a little more if it has cooled.  It should be a consistency where it will stream off of a small spatula or spoon.  Drizzle it on the dark chocolate.  Try not to get any globs of white like I did.  Immediately place in the refrigerator for a minimum of 1 hour.

11) Bring the chocolate out of the refrigerator and allow it to warm up a little.  In my house in the summer (73 degrees), that's about 15 minutes. 

12) Get your other cookie sheet ready by placing either parchment or wax paper on it.  This will hold your final work. 

13) Using a bench scraper in your right hand, and with the cookie sheet pressed up against your stomach, scrape off curved sections of the chocolate.  As the chocolate comes up on the scraper, use your left hand to pinch the bottom of the fan.  See hand positions below.  Transfer to your finished work tray for final adjustments if needed.  

14) Alternatively you can use a metal spatula to make the fans.  In this picture you can see the different results you will get.  The left one was made with the spatula.  The right one was made with the bench scraper.  If you use the spatula you will need to bend it on the end near the handle.

15) Place your finished work in the refrigerator as soon as possible.  Store up to several weeks in a sealed refrigerated container.

Troubleshooting: If the chocolate does not ruffle or gums up on the scraper, it is not cold enough.  Put it back in the refrigerator for 1 minute and try again.  If it breaks or splinters, it is too cold. Let it come to room temperature a little longer, maybe 5 minutes before trying again.

Mistakes and unwanted shapes or scraps can be re-melted for future use.