Chocolate Leaf Tutorial and Fabulous Giveaway!

Not only do I have an easy and fun tutorial for you this week but I am also doing a fabulous giveaway that I know you are going to want to enter. You will have to read on to find out what it is.

Last week I shared with you one of my favorite Easter desserts, White Chocolate Mousse Cake with a Floating Raspberry Center. I love making this cake for Easter because you can start it on Good Friday and finish it up on Easter morning. Click here to see that blog entry.

To make this cake look as amazing as it tastes, I adorned it with fresh raspberries and chocolate leaves. I promised that this week I would teach you how to make those chocolate leaves so here is a tutorial on doing just that. Plus, there is a bonus giveaway at the end.

Step 1: Gather your Supplies

You will need chocolate or candy melts (I used vanilla candy melts for this cake), clean fresh leaves that have prominent veins such as lemon or rose (you can get these from a florist), scissors, a clean paintbrush that is only used for food, baking sheet and waxed paper.

Step 2: Clean Leaves

Clean the leaves before you start by washing them with a damp rag. Make sure that they are completely dry before you begin because chocolate does not mix well with water.

Step 3: Remove Leaves

Use your scissors to cut the leaves off of the main stem. Try to leave a little bit of the leaf stem so that you have something to hold on to while applying the chocolate.

Step 4: Trim Leaves

If you don’t need your chocolate leaves to be as large as the leaves you are using then use your scissors to trim them to the size you want. For my Easter cake, they needed to be a lot smaller so I really trimmed them down. Make sure that you still line them up so that the center stem is still the center on your smaller leaves.

Step 5: Paint on Melted Chocolate

Melt your chocolate or candy melts by either using a double boiler or melting pot. Chocolate can also be melted in a microwave very carefully but I don’t recommend it because it is so easy to overheat. Once the chocolate is melted, hold a trimmed leaf by its stem and use the paintbrush to apply a coating of chocolate on the underside of the leaf. If the chocolate is too runny, let it cool slightly and then try again.

Step 6: Clean Leaf Sides

Once it is completely coated, use your fingers to wipe off the sides of any excess chocolate. This is an important step because chocolate stuck on the sides can cause the chocolate leaf to break or rip off pieces of the real leaf and get them stuck on your chocolate leaf. Set the leaf on a baking sheet that has been lined with waxed paper.

Step 7: Reapply Chocolate to Stem

Once all your leaves have been coated, cleaned and have started to set up a little, use your paintbrush to go back over each leaf and apply another coating of chocolate just along the stem area. This is the most delicate part of the leaf and the place where it is most likely to break when being removed. Adding the additional chocolate gives it extra support.

Step 8: Refrigerate

Place the baking sheet in the refrigerator for about 20-30 minutes, or until leaves are completely firm.

Step 9: Unmold

To remove the chocolate leaf from the real leaf, hold the stem with one hand and carefully peel the leaf away while holding the chocolate in the other hand.

Now you’ve got chocolate leaves. Be careful when handling them because they melt in your fingers very quickly.

Use them to adorn my Easter Cake or any other dessert you want to add a touch of elegance to.

They can even beautify your serving plate.

Okay, and now for the giveaway…….

I have been doing a lot of chocolate posts lately so you may have noticed that I often refer to my melting pot. I love my melting pot! In fact, to be totally honest, I have several of them because I like to be able to melt several colors of chocolate at once for some of my projects.

Well, I want to give you a chance to experience how fun a melting pot is too. I am going to give away one Wilton Chocolate Pro Electric Melting Pot on this coming Saturday, April 7th.

All you have to do is leave a comment at the end of this blog entry telling me what your favorite Easter, or springtime, dessert is. That will give you one entry into a drawing that I will do on Saturday. Plus, if you want to get an extra entry into the drawing, go to my Facebook page and leave me a comment on my wall. That’s all you have to do and you could win a chocolate melting pot all for yourself! All comments must be made by Friday at midnight, Mountain Standard Time. I will then pick the winner and make an announcement on Saturday morning.

Good luck making your leaves and good luck with the drawing.

Until next time, God Bless and Sweet Dreams.