Go Faster Stripes

One of my favourite bloggers was doing some important musing and wondering recently. She was particularly intrigued by how Alice's chocolate had achieved its stripe. I was almost overcome with excitement - because I KNEW.

Yes, I know how the stripe was placed so elegantly in Alice's chocolate. And this post is to demonstrate to MPM (and anyone else who may be preoccupied by the problem) how it's done. Albeit in a rather rough and ready version...

First off - prepare your chocolate making equipment - including here, white and milk chocolate (all I had in) and some chocolate moulds. (Yes, they are dinosaurs!)

Without going into the details (because this isn't a chocolate tempering workshop) melt the chocolate in preparation for putting into the moulds.

And then here is the clever bit - unfortunately I was unable to capture the actual moment as I was without a photographer and my hands were occupied. To get a perfect stripe, one should use a piping bag but I couldn't be bothered. I just dribbled a thin stream of chocolate directly from the spoon into the mould; allowing the chocolate to make a line in each individual mould. (Apologies for the photography.)

Allow this chocolate to set in the mould before filling with the white chocolate. And then wait til this sets too.

Et voila! One 'inset' stripe. And I confess, it's not elegantly placed - it would have looked better offset to the left as you look at it and with a little bit of pink or red chocolate in the indentation and if time had been on my side, I would probably have made these with a truffle centre, rather than solid. But you get the idea...?

Random dribbling! And a fair bit of blobbing.
Hope this unprofessional guide explains it for you, MPM. And anyone else struggling with the same anxieties.

And I hope she doesn't mind if I pinch one of her comments I read on her blog - 'Pass me another atom, this one's split!' Love it!