Personalized Chocolate Accents

Andrew loves being a Boy Scout, and this weekend was the organizations 100th Birthday Party AKA The Blue and Gold Celebration. Every family pitched in to bring something to the potluck, and naturally I signed up for dessert. Im always looking for an excuse to make a fun treat.

The symbol of the Boy Scouts is the trefoil. So I made chocolate trefoils, and put them in mini mousse cups.



As I laid the platter onto the table, people ooohed and aaahed (isnt that the whole point?) and one woman commented, "You spent way too much time on those for this event." To which I responded, "It took 40 minutes, MAX." I stress that point, because I want you to realize how QUICK and EASY this dessert is to make. The mousse takes less than 5 minutes (seriously!) and the chocolate decorations (trefoils) took 35 (25 for the chocolate to temper, and 10 to make the trefoils.) So, keep that in mind, as you imagine your own variations of this fun treat.

The first step, is to get the tempering unit going.....once you put the chocolate in, you can walk away....to make the mousse, or watch the Olympics :)



When tempered chocolate is piped onto parchment paper, it will harden and lift of easily. No need to refrigerate (in fact, refrigerating will make the chocolate get condensation...and we dont want wet chocolate.)

I decided to create a trefoil, the symbol of the Boy Scouts. Since I knew these would be gobbled up quickly by a bunch of little boys and their parents, I just drew the design by hand (Im admittedly no artist)...but you can print any design or picture off the internet....butterflies, fans, initials, flowers, are all popular accents. Lay parchment paper out on your counter, and then put the picture underneath, so you can just pipe on top of it.



Once the chocolate is ready, you will scoop it into your piping tool. A pastry bag with a small tip, a squeeze bottle, or ...as I have done here, use a plastic baggie with a small whole snipped out of the corner.



Carefully pipe the chocolate onto the design.



I used Dove Chocolate Discoveries, mini chocolate cups.



Using the Dove piping bag, I piped in our Dark Chocolate Mousse



NOTICE....this would be an impressive dessert, all by itself...it's petite and beautiful, and if this were all I were serving, it would have only taken 5-10 minutes total.

But this post is about personalizing our desserts with chocolate accents...so, I added the trefoil...



This was a simple dessert, with that extra touch that made it special....and best of all, it was DELICIOUS!