Dessert of the Day: Chocolate Names

 This may very well have been the most fun I've ever had in my kitchen.  Art and Chocolate = the best combo ever!  I wanted to do something for the people around me without necessarily going out and buying a zillion extra gifts.  One of the gals at work suggested doing this for Phil's present after complaining to her that the price of Dutch Chocolate Letters were way too expensive when needing to buy nine of them (especially for someone not entirely fond of chocolate in the first place. . .).  I decided to do something different for his gift but wanted to use her idea in a different way.  So I created the name of each person I was giving them to out of Chocolate.

 I was pleasantly surprised how simple (and amazingly fun) this was to do.  The biggest problem was finding a proper squeeze bottle to use. 

I made a few neutral ones to bring with me to Christmas dinner in case a few guests I wasn't prepared for showed up.  

. . . and of course I had to create one for the blog!

To make these it's pretty straight forward but if you'd like to know how I made mine, here's how I created my Chocolate Names:

You'll need:

a double boiler or another way to heat up chocolate

melting wafers (I used dark chocolate)

a clean squeeze bottle with a small-ish sized tip

wax paper

baggies or container to deliver them in, I used a heavy piece of cardstock to place each name on

stickers or twist sticks to seal the baggies (if using)

To create the names, and to keep them uniform.  I printed each name off from the computer using a cursive font and then stuck the paper underneath a sheet of wax paper to use as a reference guide.  This is especially important if wanting them to fit in a specific bag or container without having them break apart.

Melt your wafers, spoon into your container and squeeze!!

Let set and then place on cardstock and transfer to your baggie or container and seal with a festive sticker.

Complicated right?  NOT!  Go do! 

I should note that I had some problems with thin weak spots in some of the names which caused them to break.  If the majority of the name wasn't compromised I simply heated up a knife and carefully melted the two pieces back together.  No need to keep remaking more - also keep in mind that a little chocolate goes a long way - you don't necessarily need $10 in melting wafers.  Woops. . .