Chocolate paint is an edible sauce that you can paint on the plate. It firms up, so it stays in place. It’s made from chocolate, a water-type liquid and some corn syrup. Variations are limited only by your imagination.
What You’ll Need
- 1 cup hot water-based liquid (water, strong tea, strong coffee, fruit juice, etc)
- 1/2 cup light corn syrup
- 12 oz. good quality dark chocolate, chopped in small pieces
How to Make It
In a stainless steel bowl set over hot water, melt chocolate and corn syrup.
Pour hot liquid over the chocolate and whisk very well to combine. This is an emulsion, so it will take some doing, but I promise it will come together.
Apply to your plate with a paintbrush. You could paint the whole plate, but a thick stripe will do. Or paint half. Use a fairly stiff-bristled brush. You can apply it thickly (so you can’t see the plate) or push down fairly hard while painting to get a thin coat so the plate shows through. This gives the plate a quasi-wood grained effect.
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This sounds really interesting……..I always thought getting ANY water in a chocolate mixture caused the chocolate to seize. Is the heat making the difference here?? I made my first ever chocolate ganache yesterday and was so proud! Shiny, bright and just the right texture I wanted. Not as sweet as I would prefer but just enough to contrast with the sweet cake it was covering….!! I keep turning to your site when I need to learn anything these days!! Thank you!!
Congratulations on the ganache! Isn’t it magical how it looks all thin and dumb and then it starts to get thick and glossy in the center as you stir?! Love it!
You’re right about getting just a tiny bit of water into chocolate–that will make it seize. If, for example, I only added a tablespoon of hot water/coffee, etc to the chocolate, it would definitely seize. If you add enough water, it doesn’t.
Shirley Corriher (my culinary heroine) describes it like this: you know how when you get just a drop or two of water in the sugar and the sugar clumps up? Well, if you keep adding water, it eventually smooths out and dissolves. Since chocolate is an emulsion of dry little flecks of chocolate liquor (the solid, pure chocolate–like cocoa powder kind of) suspended in fat (cocoa butter), just a touch of water will make those solids clump up and stick together. Add enough, and there’s all of a sudden plenty of “room” for all those little particles to float around without clumping up. Hope that helps, Tilly! 🙂
Got it!! I can ‘see’ the example you described perfectly in my head. Very cool!! Thanks so much!!