Chocolate Curls

These chocolate curls are used in my post called Hoa's Chocolate Birthday Cake.  They're easy to make, they last several months in a sealed container in the refrigerator, and they can be used to dress up a variety of desserts.  They are made in a similar way to the Chocolate Fans, so once you get the hang of these, try the fans.

Ingredients:

2 high quality chocolate bars, finely chopped  

I like Ghirardelli chocolate the best, and it's not just because I'm from the San Francisco Bay Area.  I've compared several chocolates side by side.  I find Hershey's to be gritty and a lot of the expensive chocolate bars, like Godiva, taste greasy.  Do some taste testing and use what you like best.  For this recipe I used 60% cacao and semisweet which is about 45% cacao, but you can use any cacao percentage or even white chocolate.  

Equipment:

1 cookie sheet (not non-stick).  If it has sides, use the bottom.

1 offset spatula

1 small metal bowl for melting the chocolate

Apron

Sharp metal spatula.  This can be a brownie spatula, like I use, or one end of a bench scraper.

1) These directions show me working with one chocolate bar at a time.  For a cake topping you will need to repeat the process with the second bar.  First chop one bar of chocolate into medium fine chunks and put it in a metal bowl.  Set it in a simmering open water bath.  Keep the flame on its lowest setting or even turn it off completely for white chocolate.

2) Warm the cookie sheet by moving it over your burner about 6 inches above the flame.  

3) Pour the melted chocolate on the cookie sheet.

4) Use the offset spatula to spread the chocolate out to cover the cookie sheet.  I was using my other hand to take the picture, but when I spread the chocolate out, the fingers of my left hand were pressing lightly on the blade of the spatula about half way up.

5) When it is fairly even, put the cookie sheet in the refrigerator for 25 minutes.  Longer is ok.

6) Take the cookie sheet out of the refrigerator and let it come up to temperature for about 2 minutes.  Using the spatula upside-down as shown below, scrape the chocolate from the cookie sheet into little curls.  The trick here is that the chocolate has to be at the right temperature.  If it sticks to your spatula, it's too warm.  Put the whole thing back in the refrigerator for 5 minutes.  When you bring it out again, allow less time for it to warm up.  On the other hand, if it crackles instead of curling, it's still too cold.  Wait a minute and try again.  Once the chocolate starts to roll up, work quickly to get as much of it rolled up as you can.  Getting it to the right temperature is an iterative process, so be patient.

7) If you scrape on the diagonal you can get these beautiful little spiral curls.  Be sure to do a variety of sizes.  You don't want them all the same.

8) This is what mistakes look like.  They can be remelted and reused (or eaten).

9)  Place your curls in a sealed plastic container and put them in the refrigerator until ready to use.

10) Repeat with second chocolate bar.