A little chocolate goes a long way to make cookies fancier and tastier

CUTOUTS

Chocolate can be cut out into any shape and used to decorate cookies with.

How to Make Chocolate Cutouts:

1. Melt chocolate
2. Cover a hard, flat, smooth surface with parchment or waxed paper and secure paper in place
3. Good surfaces include, but are not limited to:
   • The back of a metal jelly roll (sided cookie sheet)
   • Cookie sheet
   • Metal table
4. Spread chocolate thinly over prepared surface
5. Let dry
   • To speed drying it can be placed in a cool place or the fridge
   • Note, if the chocolate is too hard or cold, then the design may crack when being cut
6. Cut out shapes freehand with a sharp knife or with cookie cutters
7. Carefully remove shapes by peeling off paper
8. Adhere chocolate design to cookie with any of the following:
   • Icing
   • Frosting
   • Melted chocolate
   • Mixture of confectioner’s sugar and water

CURLS

Chocolate curls are a fanciful addition to any cookie.

How to Make Chocolate Curls:

• Let a chocolate bar come to room temperature
• For larger curls, using a peeler peel curls off the broad side of the bar
• For smaller curls, using a peeler peel curls off thin side of the bar

Tips of Making Chocolate Curls:

• Making chocolate curls can be a little testy. The chocolate needs to be at just the right temperature for the curls to peel off without cracking.
• If there is lots of cracking, warming the chocolate may help. This can be done either by rubbing the chocolate with the palm of your hand or putting it in the microwave in very short increments.
• A food stylist trick is to melt chocolate, add a little shortening to it then pour it into a mold (such as the plastic oblongs that some shortening sticks come packaged in) and letting it harden. The block is removed and then curls are made with a peeler. This is easier than working with pure chocolate since the shortening makes it a little softer and more forgiving, temperature-wise, to work with.

MARBLING

This flourish easily adds some elegance to a cookie.

How to Marble:

1. Melt two or more different color chocolates, such as bitter chocolate and white or milk chocolates
2. Coat a cookie with one of the chocolates
3. While still wet use a different color chocolate to make dots, lines, or both on the base coat of chocolate
4. Drag a toothpick or knife point through the dots and or lines
5. Let set

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