Chocolate leaves

Fall is here with its wonderful colours. Why not take those leaves inside to decorate a cake with them? There are still some green leaves, that are perfect for coating with chocolate to make chocolate leaves. I can say, that I grew up on chocolate rose leaves, because my mom used to make them often. I remember that I collected the leaves in front of the house for her and watched her making the leaves with huge eyes. The best are rose leaves or other that have the same character, or are a little bit less strong, but the very soft ones or hairy leaves are not appropriate, because they might stick into the chocolate, and I bet nobody wants hairy chocolate leaves. I have decorated a chocolate mousse and caramel chocolate ganache cake with some cute leaves.


Ingredients:
100 g dark chocolate (or milk, or white)
rose or other leaves

First chop chocolate and temper the following way: place chopped chocolate into a heatproof bowl. Put water into a pot and place the bowl on top of the pot. Make sure the bottom of the bowl doesn't touch the water. As soon as the chocolate has molten completely, the temperature should be 55°C. Remove the bowl from the bain marie and put it into another bowl with ice water and stir chocolate with a wooden spoon until it reaches 27°C. Immediately put the bowl of chocolate back on top of the pot with the hot water and while stirring and controlling the temperature let it get 30-33°C warm. Now the chocolate is tempered and ready to use. With a piece of wet cotton clean the back of the leaves, then let them dry. You can either dunk the back of the leaves into the tempered chocolate or brush them. Let them dry on a greaseproof paper in the fridge for 15 minutes. Now brush them with another layer of chocolate and leave them in the fridge for another 30 minutes. Then take each leaf and carefully peel away the leaf from the chocolate.