Tag Archives: sugar

The weird and wacky world of chocolate sculptures

I’ve made a few chocolate sculptures. They make me uncomfortable. The entire time that I’m making them, I feel like a fraud. Like someone will come up behind me and whisper, “You don’t know what the hell you’re doing, do you?” And the answer, usually, is no.

Sugar sculpture at 2007 James Beard Awards

What grows from a sugar tree? Candy apples, of course.

James Beard Awards chocolate sculpture and desserts

Those are Valrhona Manjari chocolate domes with raspberry gelee inside and gold leaf on top. And a snarling jungle cat, made of chocolate, to guard the table.

There are some pictures in this post about my time working as a chocolatier. And, in a bit of serendipity, when I googled for an image of “chocolate sculpture,” the first one took me to Rose Levy Berenbaum’s blog post about the 2007 James Beard Awards in New York City. I was at that awards show. I worked with the chefs of Le Cordon Bleu to prepare 1400 plated desserts. And I assisted as they created a candy apple sugar sculpture and the snarling jungle cat chocolate sculpture that is shown on Rose’s blog. It took three of us three days and 36 hours, but we did it.

So I have the utmost respect for people who make gorgeous chocolate sculptures. It’s a delicate balance of artistry and engineering. I think the artistry is pretty self-explanatory, but the engineering might be undervalued by most. Chocolate is heavy, and stacking chocolate on top of chocolate makes for a very heavy (and heavy-looking, as in clumsy) sculpture. At the same time, delicate pieces don’t provide much structural support, so you have to create something that’s still sturdy. Tricky.

Chocolate sculpture at EAT! Vancouver

Chocolate sculpture from Suzannah Yeung of the Fairmont Pacific Rim Hotel.

I was fortunate to be a judge at the EAT! Vancouver chocolate competition a while back, and the winning sculpture just blew me away. Created by Suzannah Yeung of the Fairmont Pacific Rim Hotel, it was hands-down my favourite of the competition. The entire piece is made of chocolate, without any extra supports. You know that someone has done a good job when you’re so entertained by it you don’t even notice the construction. I loved the level of detail, the execution and the cleanliness of the piece. The playfulness—the lizard’s face and tongue—just made it that much better.

Chocolate sculpture at EAT! Vancouver - lizard closeup

Closeup of Mr. Lizard. Look at the detail on his face and hands.

Chocolate sculpture at EAT! Vancouver - flower closeup

These are chocolate flowers. Usually you need pastillage to get this level of detail.

Chocolate sculpture at EAT! Vancouver - back closeup

The back of the sculpture is as clean as the front.

From a technical standpoint, the sculpture was impressive. It was impeccably clean. Despite my eagle eyes looking for any signs of drippy chocolate, I didn’t find any. What I did find was shiny, tempered chocolate, smart use of colour, and a range of impressive techniques. That giant block of would-be granite that’s on the bottom of the piece? That’s not granite. That’s chocolate, all dolled up to look like rocks. The incredibly delicate flowers, so thin that I would have sworn they were made of pastillage? Nope. All chocolate. The air-brushed portrait, right down to the lines on the dragonfly—seriously impressive.

And, finally, I always look at the back of the sculpture. I was told when making a sculpture that it needs to be beautiful from all angles. That means that the back of it needs to be as clean, well-composed and aesthetically pleasing as the front of it.

This is the kind of work that comes from hours and hours of practice, years of experience and a natural knack for the stuff. I’m glad someone knows what they’re doing. I’m happy just to gawk.

The wonder of sponge cake

Genoise is the classic French sponge cake. Its exhaustive list of ingredients includes eggs, sugar and flour. And maybe a wee bit of butter. But that’s it.

Just think for a minute about how amazing that is. Eggs are individually packaged vehicles containing fat and protein. Sugar is a crystalline sweetener that gives nice caramel flavours when it’s heated. Flour is a powdery form of wheat, and provides structural support for most things in the pastry kitchen. Butter is, well, fat.

Under the right circumstances, these ingredients come together to form a complex network of teeny tiny air bubbles.

First, heat eggs and sugar to 45 degrees Celsius, then whisk until cool. This magical temperature is just hot enough to loosen up the proteins in the eggs, but not so hot that you end up with sweet scrambled eggs. With vigorous whisking, this dense, yellow liquid is magically transformed into a pale yellow foam that is twice, sometimes thrice, its original volume. It doesn’t matter how many times I make genoise - the beauty of the foam shocks me every time.

Gently, oh so gently, fold in the flour. This terrifying step is dreaded by most culinary students, since it’s a fine balance of incorporating the flour just so without deflating your egg foam. After a bit of practice, you learn to read the batter. It whispers to you when it’s done – you just have to keep your eyes and ears open. 

If you’re daring, you’ll fold room temperature (not hot, not cold), melted butter into the mix.

But that’s not all. Now you have to gently coax the batter into a prepared pan, and slide it into the oven. All those old-fashioned stories of moms shooing their bouncing kids out of the kitchen when a sponge cake was in the oven? I get it now. Nothing comes between me and my genoise.

After all that, if you’ve done your job properly, it comes out of the oven golden-brown, moist and fragrant. That’s alchemy, if I ever saw it.

Jiffy Pop!

The Well-Tempered Chocolatier is nominated in the Best of 604 awards!  Click here to vote!

Having lived my entire life in North America, I don’t think twice about how much corn is in our diet.  Michael Pollan’s book  The Omnivore’s Dilemma talks in great detail – probably more than you want to know – about how much corn and corn by-products are in the North American diet.

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