Chocolate Week: chocolate masterpieces
For the week celebration we're taking a look at chocolate creations from Big Ben to chocolate Lego and everything in between.
At New York’s 2008 Chocolate Show, the superhero theme invited a great number of impressive designs.
Batman, Iron Man and even Obama's head made their appearances alongside a chocolate Lois Lane, Xena Warrior Princess, Wonder Woman and The Flash.
View the whole chocolate collection here
2. Chocolate Train
Displayed in Brussels, this impressive train set constructed entirely out of chocolate set the Guinness World Record for the longest chocolate structure when it was created back in 2012.
At 112ft long and weighing 1,250kg, the train took more than 700 hours for Maltese chocolate artist Andrew Farrugia, to construct.
As part of a Christmas festival in Macerata Feltria, central Italy, a scale model of Big Ben was constructed by Angelo Feduzzi.
At 35 ft. high, the imposing chocolate structure was sculpted for a hefty 17,600lbs of chocolate over the course of two weeks.
4. Chocolate Teapot
Challenged to disprove the phrase, “as useful as a chocolate teapot,” chocolatiers at the Nestle Product Technology Centre in York recently created exactly that.
The team hand-crafted a teapot made from dark chocolate, containing 65% cocoa solids. According to the BBC, “The hot water melted some of the chocolate inside the teapot but the viscous molten chocolate helped insulate the outside layer and the teapot did not leak."
Engineers at Choc Edge, which came out of the University of Exeter, have developed a way of 3D printing with chocolate despite the challenges of the material.
Costing between £50 to £80, the technology allows customers to send an image of themselves and have it sculpted by building up layers of dark, milk or white chocolate.
6. Chocolate Mayan Temple
To celebrate their 30th anniversary, Qzina Specialty Foods created a chocolate replica of an ancient Mayan temple. Chosen because of the ancient civilisation was crucial in the discovery and evolution of chocolate, the sculpture set the Guinness World Record for the World’s Largest Chocolate Structure, weighing in at 18,239 pounds.
7. Chocolate Skyscraper
Based on the Chrysler Building, the Empire State Building and the Rockefeller Center, this towering chocolate sculpture was designed in 2006 by three time World Record winning pastry chef, Alain Roby.
The chocolate skyscraper was 6.6 metres tall and contains over 1,000 kg,
8. Chocolate Eiffel Tower
A 12 ft Eiffel Tower made entirely out of chocolate was unveiled in 2009 to launch Thorntons’ range of European inspired chocolates.
The edible architecture attracted many admirers when it was placed in St Pancras station, where the Eurostar departs to Paris.
9. White Chocolate World Heritage
Italian chocolatier, Mirco Della Vecchia handcrafted white chocolate sculptures of some of the world’s most recognisable monuments, including the Arc de Triomphe, the Parthenon, the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the Colosseum, Egyptian temples and Stonehenge.
The three time World Record winning chocolatier’s work was displayed at a Hong Kong exhibition, back in 2011.
It seems that 2014 has brought about quite the LEGO revival, and in February this year Japanese designer Akihiro Mizuuchi created chocolate LEGOs.
The pieces are both edible and functional, with the ability to build chocolate houses by snapping the small chocolate bricks together.
By Jessica Eve Kennedy
Are you creating a chocolate masterpiece for Chocolate Week or just buying yourself a few extra bars? Let us know over on our Twitter and Facebook pages.
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