I wanted to make chocolate feathers but didn’t have a mold for that. Then, somehow, I got off topic and started daydreaming about making chocolate leaves. It occurred to me that I could use a real leaf as a mold. I got started on the project that afternoon. That’s the kind of person I am- off and running at the first inclining of an art project.

For the plate you see here, I roasted chopped almonds and spread them over the bottom of the plate. Then I poured white chocolate over the nuts. After that set, I poured semi-sweet chocolate over the top. I used chocolate molds from the store for the flowers. I used my recipes for chocolate and white chocolate ( in my cookbook), but you can melt semi-sweet chocolate and use that.

How to Make Chocolate Leaves
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Ingredients:

High Water Content Edible Leaves (I used spinach for this project. I tried strawberry leaves for another project but they did not work so well due to not freezing well)
Melted Chocolate

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Prepare a platter with parchment paper and place the leaves on top. Put the whole thing in the freezer. Give it at least half an hour to freeze.

Dip the frozen leaves carefully in melted (but not hot) chocolate. Only get chocolate on the backside of the leaf. It takes practice. The leaves wilt very quickly so you may want to leave most of them in the freezer and work with one at a time. Place the dipped leaf on the frozen parchment paper (chocolate side up). (I also tried pouring chocolate onto the backside of the leaves, and it worked but was more difficult to control.)

Place the leaves back in the freezer for about 10 minutes. Take them out, let them warm-up for a few minute and the leaves will easily peel off the chocolate.

Some thoughts:

Maybe leaves out of the refrigerator instead of the freezer would work better. I will try that next time.

This is a just for fun activity. If you want a perfect, works every time project, you might not want to play this chocolate leaf game. That being said, these photos are from my first attempt- so it clearly works!

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