Cooking in the Kitchen: Chocolate

Monday night is "Gatherings @ the Azure Tower" night and most of the cooking is usually done before the actual gathering - for most of us, we actually don't cook the day of...or if we do, it's a bit rushed due to the work day...so I spend part of my weekend doing my contribution for this week's theme of "Cocoa/Chocolate"

I actually started on Saturday, since I'm doing a layered dessert for my "showcase" and things needed to be cooled/chilled...

melted dark chocolate for the base
very, very messy chocolate piping for garnish

the base layer

melted semi-sweet chocolate

sugar & water for caramelization

starting to boil

nice caramel color

caramel + semi-sweet chocolate mixture

a very temperamental dark chocolate ganache

it was an extremely hot weekend

chocolate was very difficult to work with

my 4 layered "cocoa/chocolate" themed dessert setting

Ok, so I feel guilty for posting pictures of very messy work...but I can't share the final results until after Cocoa/Chocolate night :)

4 layer caramel chocolate mousse with mocha chocolate ice cream :)