How to Make Chocolate Leaf Dessert Cups

hi Julia sure recipes for sweet life welcome back now that it's spring and the leaves are on the trees it's time to revisit the beauty of chocolate leaves if you recall from a previous video background Christmas time I use chocolate leaves to make a beautiful wreath that I displayed flat on a glass cake stand today I'm going to take that idea up a notch quite literally because I'm going to be standing the leaves on end to create beautiful little dessert cups you can also make much larger leaf cups if you will for full-sized dessert presentations simply by scaling up the size of the chocolate leaf but we're going to be working on the smaller version today it's quite straightforward it just involves a few ingredients let's review what you'll need first you'll need some chocolate I've got white chocolate here you want to use either a compound or coating chocolate otherwise you're going to have to temper your real chocolate and I'll talk about that in a little bit I've got white compound chocolate that I'm working with today that doesn't require any tempering simply melting and painting on the leaves you can also make the leaves dark chocolate of course or a light chocolate color by adding a little bit of dark chocolate to the white so I've got that there we want to play with the color later you'll need some things to mold the leaves and what I'm going to use our real leaves cleaned wipe dry non-toxic and pesticide free in my first chocolate leaf video I talked a lot about what leaves work well and which don't so you might want to refer to that for details on what to look for I'll review that only briefly in this video we'll also need some things for creating the base of the cup so I've got some simple deli containers which I use to create the base for the large dessert and a simple paper cup that I cut down to create the base for the dessert cup and then once the leaves are molded we want to give them a little texture accentuate their vein structure we're just going to be dusting them with a little bit of dry unsweetened cocoa powder and a soft brush I'm going to move on to the first step which is melting the chocolate I've got a whole nother video that talks about that in detail I don't have a microwave so I actually just do it in a double boiler a makeshift double boiler a pan with a little bit of water in it and a bowl that sits nicely on top you don't necessarily want the bowl resting in the water and you want to make sure you melt it over very very low heat so the chocolate doesn't seize if it gets too hot it will thicken then become very lumpy we're going to melt that and start promptly on painting the leaves okay I've got my chocolate nicely melted you'll see I didn't overheat it and you can tell because it's flowing relatively quickly off the spoon if it gets too hot it'll be very lumpy and hard to spread okay so let's start first with making the leaves I think I need about 15 to go around this two and a half inch diameter cup but of course that's going to depend on the size of your leaf I've got these very narrow ones and just briefly the leaves that tend to work best for chocolate molding of course or non-toxic clean and dry if there's any moisture on it it will leave a spot on the chocolate you also want to choose a leaf that's relatively shiny and has nice vein structure because we're trying to pick up the vein so this is a very nice central vein which is going to be highlighted really nicely when we dust it with cocoa and it's somewhat shiny on the backside if it's a fuzzy leaf the chocolate will tend to stick to it more one more thing about the leaves actually you want to avoid any leaves with holes or tears because the that will be a place where the chocolate will flow through onto the back of the leaf and it will be harder to get the leaf off so we're not going to work with those two so as far as painting on the leaves some people will use a brush to paint on leaves or in other molds but I don't like to use something with bristles because sometimes the bristles fall off and then the brush is completely difficult to clean once the chocolate sets up in it's very hard to clean so I prefer to work with something smooth and straight edge this is just the the handle of a craft paintbrush the bristles fell off and I'm going to just dab the chocolate on with that it's an easy to clean tool and it gets the chocolate exactly where it needs to go so I'm just taking a little bit on the end of my craft paint brush and painting it on the vane side of the leaf because you want to pick up the vane structure of course you wouldn't want to do it on the other side of the leaf and do your best to keep chocolate from getting on the back because as I mentioned before if it gets on the back it's harder to remove the leaf later once the chocolate sets up it's okay if it's a little bit messy at the end but I am going to put it down on a clean area on a silicon mat to set up so that if there is any on the back and it sticks it'll easily pop up off the silicon mat let me just do a couple more and we'll set the is in the fridge or freezer to set up this is a compound chocolate as I said it doesn't require tempering it just requires melting and this would actually set up at room temperature at a cool room temperature it would set up quite quickly but I'm going to accelerate the process in the fridge when I do that I only like to leave it in the fridge for a couple of minutes because if you leave it in too long longer than it takes to set up moisture can accumulate on the chocolate and you don't want that either just a word on coating or compound chocolates versus tempering chocolate I tend to prefer to work with real chocolate when I can because I prefer the flavor real chocolate has cocoa butter in it a compound chocolate has the cocoa butter substituted the cocoa butter in it has been substituted with palm oil so it sets up firmly at room temperature and firming crisp and shiny real chocolate won't do that unless you take it through a process called tempering which is a very specific process of working it and bringing it up and down through different temperatures so it sets crisply it's important for this project for the chocolate to set firm and crisp because it's going to be standing upright and you don't want it to melt you're going to have this on display for any a period of time you don't want it to wilt so for this project either use tempered real chocolate or a compound also known as a coating or a summer chocolate sometimes and you'll have the best results before I set these in the fridge to chill I'm just going to set them aside we're going to prepare the base for the cup we need something to attach the leaves to and to do that I'm creating a mold out of something that I found at the grocery store so get creative you don't have to get fancy special molds to mold chocolate you can often use things that you can find around the house so I just took a simple paper cup and cut it down so I could more easily get the chocolate in because I'm going to be piping it into the base of this it doesn't again need to be perfect but I do want enough height that I have that when I mold it I create a piece that's tall enough that I can actually attach the leaves to it so I'm cutting it about 1/4 inch tall and will probably fill it about 1/8 of an inch full to a quarter of an inch just again to make sure that I have enough enough of a base to put the chocolate on so I'm piping that in you could spoon it in but I find piping just gives me a little bit more control generally I like to pipe in concentric circles from the outside to the end so that the chocolate initially lays pretty smoothly you can also shake it to level it out if you need to so that's it these can also set at room temperature because I'm using a compound chocolate it will just take a little bit longer than the leaves because it's thicker chocolate so because I'm on video time I do want to speed up the process I am also going to set these in the fridge for a couple of minutes just until they start to separate from the edge of the container okay well that chocolate is setting in the fridge for a few minutes I just wanted to talk a little bit about tinting chocolate you can make these in different colors if you wanted to tint it green you could but you want to make sure you use an oil-based coloring or a candy coloring not a water-based coloring because any small amount of water will cause the chocolate to thicken or seize the other way you can add nice natural colors is simply to add other chocolate to it so I'm just going to drop a few past deals or pellets of dark chocolate in here we'll sit it back over on the stove over some heat and I'll show you what a nice low you'll see it's beginning to start to melt with just the heat of the water underneath and this can create a really nice soft chocolate tone too so you can get varying shades of brown which is really beautiful in this dessert as well these leaves were literally just in the freezer actually at I'm in the freezer not the fridge either will work for just a minute or two and you can see how easily the leaf peels off now I knocked the tip off of that but that's not a worry I can come in with scissors and actually trim that up if I don't like the fact that I knocked the point off so again just unmolding I just lightly touch them here I might have difficulty getting this leaf off because I got chocolate on the back so just I'm just pulling very gently and here I would want to trim that off because I've got a little bit of a leaf stuck in there that's relatively easy to do this is a cleaner leaf and I think you'll see that the pull is a lot easier they look great more difficult to get it off so you want to pay attention when you're piping painting your leaves not to get any any chocolate on the backside then I've got a number of good leaves and then the next step is to accentuate the vein structure and I've done that already on some as you can see by dusting with cocoa same chocolate just lightly dusted with cocoa and it just highlights the vein quite nicely so I'm going to show you how I do that and you can do that immediately but I tend to like to let my leaves come a little bit more to room temperature before I do that because if there's any condensation on those that came out of the freezer or fridge the cocoa will tend to go down more spotty as opposed to more evenly so I'm just doing a light dusting of cocoa on the end of my brush I really probably don't want to do it over my finish leaves and I've got a nice soft brush you don't want a really stiff brush because it'll scratch the chocolate and that's what that looks like let me do a couple more you need about 15 of these I think to get all the way around so we want to do at least that many sometimes I find when I brush with the side of the brush I pick up more of the side vein structure ok so I think I've got plenty here I'm going to go ahead and unmold the base of the cup I'd like to do that I do like to chill the base of the cup because it'll be easier to attach the chocolate Leafs to it if the base is actually cold because I'm going to be applying chocolate to stick the two together and I'll just set that much more quickly I'm going to pull that actually out of the freezer and we'll get to putting it together ready for the final assembly step this is where we're headed this is what the cups going to look like very delicate and elegant but first things first we need to unmold the base this has been setting just for a few minutes a little bit longer than the leaves you'll see it nicely pops out I've got a nice enough rim enough of a rim that I can detach the leaves pretty firmly to that and to do that I'm going to be working with melted chocolate that's what I've got my parchment cone and because this is called hopefully it will set relatively quickly so I won't have to spend a lot of time holding my leaves in place before they stand on their own we'll see how long it takes I'm just going to simply glue them all the way around like so attaching them with chocolate you can either choose all the same height leaf or try to get it close to the same height so you have a really a uniform cup or you can vary the heights and shapes of the leaves too for that matter just to create more interest it's really up to you sometimes some leaves because of their shape will just fit more nicely together leaving less of an opening at the bottom I'm trying to minimize these openings around the bottom because we are going to fill it later so you'll see it just takes a few seconds really for the chocolate to set up if your base is cold it might take a little bit longer for it to set up if your base was not called like that when it was leaning into the inside of the cup too much I want to if anything because it leaves curved in at the top if anything I want to have them leaning out a little bit you you you okay so just about got the lastly on if you want you can always reinforce with a little more chocolate from the inside as I'm doing here just to give it a little bit more stability because of course that blob of chocolate on the inside won't be seen we're going to be filling this with a lovely cocoa whipped cream and some fresh berries if you're going to be storing these because I've used a compound chocolate that is solid at room temperature I can just put them in airtight containers and store them in a cool room sealed if you were using a tempered chocolate the same thing would be the case if you hadn't tempered this chocolate then you would probably want to store them in the fridge just for longevity but again I would have them also in a container sealed because any kind of moisture from the fridge will be attracted to the chocolate and you'll end up with some moisture on the chocolate if you don't cover it but I'm going to go ahead and present these immediately just simply move this over carefully onto a little presentation plate and then I'm going to fill it it's always easier to move it onto the final plate then fill it and then move it filled with the plate because these are delicate cups for the finishing touch I'm just going to fill them very simple with fresh summer berries because we're entering that season and some whipped cream but my whipped cream is a little special because I've got a little bit of cocoa powder and powdered sugar added to it so it's sweetened and it's got a nice chocolatey color which I think will contrast the cups nicely and also pick up some of the cocoa accents on the leaves now I'm blended mine last night and it got very soft it's best to actually whip this right before you want to pipe it so that it maintains its volume because I don't have any whipped cream stabilizers in it but the good news is is you can read it if as long as the cream is cold and it's been refrigerated so I'm going to do that now so you don't know whip it too much that it turns to butter but I want it to have nice soft peaks that look graceful because I'm going to pipe it through a pastry bag here in a bit but before we pipe it I'm just going to toss a few little berries carefully in the bottom of each more than a few several I've got blackberries here but any berry will do and of course you could fill these with anything you could even clear them with cake and filling if you wanted to just tuck it in there very carefully so you can see it's much thicker now just with a simple riwa ping on high speed for a couple of minutes again you could spoon this in but piping just allows you a little bit more control and hopefully we'll have a nice pretty looking ruffle to it because of the tip we're using that looks nice beautiful now you could top with a berry or a piece of mint but I just love this tone on tone effect I think it's really really quite elegant so simple chocolate desert cuffs again you can do them in small size or scale them up to create a full size presentation that one in front of you has actually got layers of cake and filling on the inside and if you want to lay them flat into little liners for dessert plates I've got a whole other video that talks about that if you go back to my chocolate wreath video you'll learn about how to make those under liners also the wreath and more do's and don'ts about which leaves to choose and which ones not to choose for the project till next video live sweetly you

Channel: JuliaMUsher

Views: 56,753

Rating: 4.8297362 out of 5

Keywords: Food & Drink, chocolate leaf dessert cups, chocolate, chocolate decorations, chocolate desserts, dessert, DIY, How to, how to make, tutorial, decorating, decorating techniques, Julia M Usher, Recipes for a Sweet Life, Ultimate Cookies, Cookie Swap, baking, desserts, sweets, chocolate leaves, painted chocolate leaves

Id: -m5AiZOxvsw

Length: 17min 35sec (1055 seconds)

Published: Fri May 20 2016