Jacques Torres Shows How to Make a Chocolate Sculpture

Famed Brooklyn chocolatier Jacques Torres recently showed ES (and some other folks) how to make one of those fancy-pants chocolate sculptures you see at weddings and bar mitzvahs but would never think to make yourself. Seems like it would be really difficult, right? Turns out it’s child’s play. All you need is some high-quality chocolate and a few balloons.

Step 1:  Jacques melts down a pot of dark chocolate over indirect heat, and then spreads a six-inch circle of it out on a papered baking sheet. Then he blows up a balloon and sticks it on the chocolate (really!)

Step 2: Jacques pours the rest of his chocolate into an icing-squirter thing (what are these things really called, anyone?) and starts drawing chocolate lines from one end of the balloon to the other.

Step 3: He then crisscrosses with chocolate lines going the other way across the balloon.

Step 4: He throws the whole shebang in the fridge for twenty minutes or until the chocolate hardens.

Step 5: He takes the chocolate out of the fridge and pops the balloon (fun!)

Step 6: Carefully, remove the balloon from the center of the now hardened chocolate cage.

Step 7: For added fanciness, Jacques had previously constructed these smaller chocolate flowers. He made them by blowing up smaller balloons and dipping them three times in a bowl of chocolate — dip, 1/3 turn, dip, 1/3 turn, dip. Presto — chocolate flower.

Step 8:  Once everything was hard, he stuck the flowers on the chocolate cage by squirting a little liquid chocolate down and pressing the flowers (carefully!!) onto the rungs.  Like paste, but tastier.

Step 9: Fill the flowers with candy.

Step 10: Eat. Impress. Love.

Top secret chocolatier’s tip: After melting, add some water to the liquid chocolate to make it thicker, so that it will hold its shape when you’re squirting the lines. Water actually makes it thicker, not thinner.  Who would have thought?