The Parrot:
Chocolate show piece, W.G.A 2008 competition at the Venetian (Macau)
This was a piece I started a while ago but due to operation level it was left unfinished
One of my P.R.C. Staff proposed me to take it over and run for the WGA 2008 competition at the Venetian (Macau) representing our hotel.
The Mandarin Oriental, Macau had two entrée to the competition this particular year
One for the cake and show piece and one for the chocolate show piece it is very motivating to see that your staff want to do something new and improve them self, this is why I like the challenge of competition.
For that piece we then decided to go for a Nature theme …. A Parrot on a broken trunk with two other birds, a nest, a snake and some beetles some orchid flower and leaves
We use special plastic sheet pattern to make the chocolate look like a tree trunk, witch was hollow, so that we could control the weight of the whole show pieces
The Parrot and the birds, as been carved by hand, as you can see on the photos it was down following some carving models we found in the market
The snake, the beetle, the cocoa beans are made out of a home made moulds made from real one,
All the cocoa bean (coming from Philippines), the leaves and orchid were molded using gelatin and finished with hair brush for the color.
In order to have a color and texture difference we have used cinnamon powder instead of cacao powder, it offer a pleasant flagrance as well to the entire show piece
On the tree trunk the wood effect was done using a still brush, marzipan varnish and cacao powder, by adding more or less of the cacao powder you can obtain the level of darkness that you wanted.
The parrot color was a mix of marzipan varnish and chocolate color powder
If you need more detail about the color please drop me an e- mail.
As usual the transportation was a challenge since the whole show piece except the flower and all the leaves, snake, scarabe, one bird, cocoa bean were al ready set on the show piece to save time at the set up.
The judges granted us with a Silver medal for this show piece and as we did another silver for the cake and show piece competition as well it was a great day I have to admit that it was motivating and fantastic for the team
See you all soon for some update
Herve
