Chocolate Cigars

Chocolate cigars make beautiful decorations for ice cream, cakes, cupcakes, cheesecakes, and make any dessert look instantly fancier.

They are also not that hard to make! So you can have beautiful cigars in no time, and also make a big batch of chocolate cigars in advance and freeze them to add to any dessert you like. In the picture above, I’ve used the chocolate cigars to garnish some coconut flavored ice cream, drizzled with healthy caramel sauce, and topped with toasted coconut and chopped pecans.

You’ll need a few tools for this:  A bowl to put your chocolate chips in, a cookie sheet to spread chocolate on the back of, an off-set spatula, and a bench scraper to make the curl. If you’re wondering what a bench scraper looks like, it is a flat tool with a handle you can hold as you scrape. It’s useful for making curls, scraping scraps off your cutting board, and icing cake sides.

First step is to melt chocolate. You can do it in 30 second pulses in your microwave (stir in between!) or you can do it on your stove in a double boiler, stirring often. This is my double boiler setup ~ basically I took a sauce pan, and filled it with an inch of water. Then I layered a pyrex bowl over it that fits in my sauce bowl. Just make sure the pyrex bowl doesn’t touch the bottom of the saucepan and rests where the water surface is.

After the chocolate is melted, you spread it onto the back of a cookie sheet using an off-set spatula. Put the cookie sheet in the fridge to chill.

**Then the most important part: Check temperature**

I want to curl now that the chocolate now that it looks like it set, but it is most important thing for pretty curls is right temperature chocolate. To test it, try to curl a corner and see if it curls easily. Push bench scraper slow at 30 degrees. Do so with the rolled part of the bench scraper facing up. If the chocolate curls smoothly, you’ve got it! If the curl is crackly, you need to wait another 1 min at room temperature till your chocolate is warm enough. If it doesn’t curl at all and your bench scraper slides right under flat chocolate, your chocolate is too warm to curl, and back to the fridge it goes! Do this until your chocolate curls smoothly ~ takes about 2 tries usually.

Once you’ve got your curls – HOORRAY!! Now store them on wax paper lined airtight tupperware and store in your freezer for some delicious chocolate cigars to garnish your next dessert.

Chocolate Cigars

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Ingredients

  

• 1 cup melted chocolate melt more chocolate for a bigger batch

Instructions

 

• Melt your chocolate either in the microwave at 30 second pulses or in a double boiler on the stove. Melt the chocolate stirring often until it is about 80% melted (so just a few unmelted chuncks) then give it a big stir and that should melt the rest.
• Add a dollop of melted chocolate unto the back of a non-stick. Cookie sheet (turn the cookie sheet upside down). Use an off-set spatula to flatten out the chocolate into an even layer.
• Stick it in your fridge a few minutes till the chocolate hardens. Take it back out of the fridge - don't start making curls yet! Test the temperature --> With your bench scraper, scrape at a 30 degree angle to see if the chocolate curls. If it is too cold the curl will break and look white-ish. Let it warm up a bit more. If the chocolate is too warm, the curl won't form (you'll just end up lifting a flat layer of chocoalte up) so put it back in teh fridge for some more chilling.
• When your chocolate is at the right temperature, push your bench scraper forward at a 30 degree angle slowly to let the curl form. The chocolate rolls on itself.
• For smaller curls that are horn-shaped instead of cigar shaped, curl in the shape of a C, as if you are writing a C from bottom to top.
• Store in a wax paper lined tupperware that is airtight. Store in freezer to keep shape.

Notes

I made this chocolate with dairy free semi-sweet chocolate chips, but you can do this with any kind of chocolate chips you enjoy.