For decorations of deserts, cakes and cookies I sometimes use chocolate ornaments. I used to buy them in a shop. It turns out, however, that making them is quite simple. It requires a bit of knack and a little manual skill, but it isn't as complicated as I used to think in the past.

The best chocolate for making decorations is dark chocolate. It has a more beautiful colour and melts at a higher temperature, so it is easier to manipulate fresh products. If, however, you need different colours, you can use white or milk chocolate as well.

Crumble the chocolate and put it into a heatproof bowl. Put the bowl into a saucepan of hot water. When the chocolate starts to melt you should stir it. Stir until the chocolate is liquid and homogeneous. The Water in the saucepan shouldn't be boiling. If the temperature is too high, it will make the chocolate lumpy. Now you have to harden the chocolate. To do this, put the bowl with melted chocolate into cold water for 3 minutes to cool the chocolate down to 27C. Then warm it up again to 33C. Chocolate prepared in this way is flexible and glossy.

Now you can use the chocolate to decorate pieces of fruit. You can prepare ornaments as well. If you trust your own skill and the motif isn't complicated, you can draw extemporaneously with the chocolate on some baking paper. If you would like to make something more sophisticated, you should draw motifs on paper, put it on transparent baking paper and draw on it. You can make a "marker" from a paper cone with the tip cut off. I draw using an icing syringe. I choose the thinnest end, but its size depends on the designed motifs. Leave the fresh chocolate decorations at room temperature to congeal. Then remove them with a knife and put them in the fridge to cool down. Now your chocolate ornaments have to wait for a cake or beautiful dessert.

Good luck!