Piping Chocolate

With the use of a paper cone, tempered chocolate can be made into decorations for cakes, pastries, and other desserts. It can be piped directly onto the dessert or piped onto parchment paper in small designs and left to harden. After they are set, the decorations can be removed from the paper and placed on the desserts. In this way, decorations can be made during slack hours and stored until needed.

Ordinary tempered chocolate is adequate for small, fine decorations, such as those for petits fours, but it is too thin for most other piped decorations. To make piping chocolate, add a very little warm simple syrup to the tempered chocolate. This will thicken the chocolate immediately. Stirring constantly, add more syrup very slowly until the chocolate is thinned to piping consistency.