Sculpting

• A book made out of modeling chocolate
  
  You can use solid chocolate or modeling chocolate---which is a bit like extra-chocolaty Tootsie Roll---to create shapes. Using just your hands and a bamboo skewer for details, you can sculpt animals, faces, textures and decorative garnishes such as ribbons and leaves. Allow yourself some time to just play with the chocolate and get a feel for molding it. Modeling chocolate can be made in dark, milk and white varieties, and the white chocolate can then be colored using powdered food coloring. Beginners should make ribbons, leaves and cutouts before moving on to more complex forms.
  
  

Piping

• Piped chocolate designs
  
  Chocolate ganache---a smooth, creamy mixture of chocolate and cream that is easily made at home on the stovetop---can be used for piping and covering cakes and other baked goods in decorative ways. When the ganache is in its warm, liquid form, you can put it in a piping bag with a plastic tip to write or draw with it. Ganache can also be spread across baked items and then textured using pastry tools or even everyday kitchen objects, such as skewers, forks, cookie cutters and more. You can also pipe shapes and designs onto a chilled surface, like a marble block, or wax paper. Allow the designs to cool and harden completely, and then remove to use as decorations.
  
  

Using molds

• A chocolate spoon comes out of a mold
  
  Chocolate can be used to cast molds as well. Pour chocolate into a plastic mold and allow it to harden, and then remove the mold. You can make solid chocolate items this way, or hollow ones. For hollow molds, just cover the inside of the mold with chocolate and let harden. If you have a two-piece mold, you can fill the chocolate with a flavored filling before attaching the two halves together with a little liquid chocolate as glue. Popular molds include plastic Easter eggs, candy molds in the shape of flowers, circles, diamonds, hearts and numbers, and clean, empty cans and containers.