Edible art: Chocolate centerpiece dresses up table

Decoration or dessert? If it's a centerpiece made of chocolate, it could be both.

Like ice carvings, chocolate sculptures can dress up a buffet table or impress party guests. Chocolate has an added advantage over ice: At room temperature, it won't melt into a puddle by the end of the evening.

Those who attended the Utah Chocolate Show at the South Towne Expo Center in Sandy earlier this month could admire a half-dozen different chocolate sculptures on display. They could also attend a workshop, "Chocolate Showpieces Made Easy," by Raymond Lammers, pastry chef at Stein Eriksen Lodge in Deer Valley.

Lammers' edible works of art often grace the Sunday brunch at the lodge. In 2005, he and two teammates created stunning chocolate and sugar showpieces to take the silver medal at the Amoretti National Pastry Championship in Las Vegas.

"This class is not about building a masterpiece, it's about teaching you guys to go home and make me proud with 16 showpieces at the Chocolate Show next year," Lammers said as he took the class through the techniques of designing a piece, tempering chocolate, molding the different elements and then assembling them into a finished product.

Lammers said his team spent about $45,000 on chocolate, specialty molds and equipment to compete in the national championship, because all the material had to be of cocoa butter or cocoa-butter related, and the molds all must be food-grade quality.

But for most purposes, you can use everyday items as molds to shape your chocolate — clear plastic glasses and plates, plexiglass bowls or industrial plastic pipe and flexible foam tubing. In the sculpture he made during the class, the base was molded in a plastic drinking glass, the flat part was molded in a plate and the curvy part was made by pouring chocolate into a flexible tube.

To make the chocolate petals, he squirted some shiny gold-colored cocoa butter onto a clear plastic sheet. Then he stamped melted chocolate over the gold layer. To give the petals curves as they hardened, he placed the stamped sheet in a plastic pipe that was split open lengthwise.

"It's like scrapbooking mixed with cooking," one student observed.

The colored cocoa butters, which come in squirt bottles, add both color and sheen. They're sold by specialty companies such as Chef Rubber at www.Chefrubber.com.

Lammers said he has no problem nibbling on some of the chocolate molded in clean industrial pipe or tubing. "But if you go to the public health department, they might have a problem with it," he added.