I have had success making beautiful chocolate curls in the past and many more times my efforts were no better than grated chocolate. Have tried a peeler and a knife and it seems it is really the temperature of the chocolate that makes the difference. I need chocolate curls tomorrow for my almost completed black forest cake. I am thinking about putting a chunk of chocolate (peter’s semisweet) into my dehydrator at 80˚ for an hour or two tomorrow morning. Any suggestions?
You’re shaving it off the block? Then yes, being a little warmer will help. You just don’t want it so warm that the thin shavings collapse and get sticky. Maybe put the shavings on a chilled plate or at least work in a cool room.
Thanks for the chilled plate idea. The chunk of chocolate is in dehydrator now. Hoping for curls!
Curls came out well - not huge or long but enough to pile up on top. I put the large chunk of chocolate in the dehydrator for 30 min (25 would have been less messy) then used the peeler. Very quick - about 5 min for a big pile.
There are 4 10" layers of chocolate sponge, brushed with kirsch and simple syrup, 3 layers of a sour cherry filling (homemade with 2 large jars of morellos), whip cream spread on each layer. There are no children coming to dinner which is good considering the amount of kirsch in this cake!
Interestingly, I looked in about 20-30 of my likely cookbooks for a recipe for Black Forest Cake and found the recipe in only one book, Pastry Chef. Many mentions and recipes online but for such a famous cake I was surprised not to find many mentions of it in any of my books.
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Wow, that looks beautiful! And the curls are amazing. Wish I could savor a piece of it!
Nice work!
beautiful
care to share the recipe?
Happy to share the recipe, it was taken from a few places. but will come back after Christmas craziness to post it.
& Heidi you can’t imagine how much I wanted to have a piece last night. Usually when I make a big cake there are cake scraps, leftover cream, filling but this time I used every bit of everything. So I will have to wait til tonight to see if it tastes as good as it looks.
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Your cake is beautiful, and the chocolate curls turned out great. Nice work.
