Chocolate Box

Have you ever seen the cute little chocolate boxes that you can buy for Valentines Day or Easter? Well that's what we had to make in class today. We had to draw a 5x5x1.75 box with a base and top and decorations for homework and then we had to make the box look EXACTLY like it. If our chocolate box was a centimeter off from our drawing, he took points off our grade. Now all we have done with chocolate so far is temper it and make pralines. Making a box is something completely different. To start making this box you, of course, start with tempering chocolate. If you don't temper the chocolate the final product will not be as shiny or smooth as it would be if tempered. Once it is ready, you pour it on a piece of parchment paper or a transfer sheet. A transfer sheet is a piece of plastic with cocoa butter designs on it. Once the chocolate is dry the design will be etched onto the chocolate. Its pretty cool and it can really make your piece look really hard when it's not. So after pouring the chocolate out, use a spatchula to make sure it is thin and even all across the chocolate. Let this sit for a few minutes to dry then cut out the 4 sides, a top and a bottom. If you put a piece of parchment paper on top of this and flip it over, it will make sure that the sides don't curl up and it will be straight. This is a very helpful tip! Then you wait and let it dry. At this time, you can make any decorations that you will need to complete your box. I took it safe since I've never made a box before and and just made some stars for the sides and made some chocolate curls. And when those are drying you can finish your box. You basically use a piping bag and connect all 4 sides. Then you can place that on the base and put the top on too. And you can finish with all of your decorations.
This is my chocolate box.

Its supposed to be a shooting star if you can't tell and like I said I was taking it easy. It's a lot harder than we expected especially since we've never done anything like this. It was a good learning experience but I don't know how many more chocolate boxes I will be making. Well tomorrow I have my final and I can't believe I'm almost done with my first class. It's crazy but I'm ready to get on with the new things I will learn next.