Chocolate Shavings and Small Curled Shavings

Appears in
top 1000The Professional Pastry Chef
The Professional Pastry Chef

By Bo Friberg

Published 1989

  • About

Chocolate shavings are made by holding a small knife at a 90-degree angle to a piece of chocolate and scraping away from you, letting the shavings fall onto a paper-lined sheet pan (Figure 10-14). Small, elegant 180-degree curls can be created, using a sharp-edged melon ball cutter in the same way. Move the melon ball cutter away from you in short strokes (Figure 10-15).

As described in some of the other decorations, the chocolate for shavings must have the correct consistency to produce a good result. If it is too warm, chocolate will cake up on the tool; if too cold, it will break into small unattractive specks and pieces. Using milk or gianduja chocolate, which by nature is softer than dark or white chocolate, will make it much easier to create thin shavings or pretty curled shavings.