Chocolate Sydney Harbour Bridge Fireworks How to Cook That Ann Reardon

Welcome to How To Cook That I am Ann Reardon Today I am going to show you how to make a chocolate bridge, this one is the Sydney Harbour Bridge but you can use the same method to make whatever bridge you would like to make. I made this one for the Weekend Sunrise which is a TV show here in Sydney, and of course you can use the Surprise Cakes app like I did to add a fireworks show to your bridge too. Lots of you asked can you show us how to make the bridge as well, so here it is... Firstly print out a picture of your bridge and then cover it in non-stick baking paper. Place some chocolate in a piping bag and for the main parts of the bridge use a flat piping tip and pipe that main structural support bit. Slide the baking paper up and repeat that a second time for the other side of the bridge structure. And you can print out this particular one for the sydney harbour bridge from the website in the size I am using I'll put that on the website howtocookthat.net and I'll put a link to that description just below this video. Squeeze all that chocolate into a new piping bag and cut off a small amount, check you can get a smooth line from it, if not cut a tiny bit more off and check again. Take your bag of chocolate and pipe the detailed parts of the bridge. Carefully making sure they are as straight as you can get them and then repeat that on the other half as well. You can use either use tempered chocolate or you can use compound chocolate for this. Today I am using compound because the bridge has to survive under the heat of the TV lights and compound chocolate has a higher melting point. To make the towers that support the bridge at each end make a lego version each tower and make that in the correct size for your bridge. Then stick that onto a lego base and build walls up around it. You'll notice on mine I used the smooth tiles on top that it will have the smooth edge. Heat some reusable food grade molding gel in the microwave and then more it over your lego prototype. Tap it on the bench to get rid of any bubbles. Now this gel takes quite a while to cool down and set, I put it in the fridge and it still took a couple of hours. Once it is set you can just pull the lego walls off. Then loosen each edge and push the lego out and now you have a mold for the end of your bridge. Fill the mold with white chocolate give it a tap to get any air bubbles. You can see this is buldging out slightly on the sides and I don't mind that shape for my bridge, if you want your perfectly straight then just build some lego walls around it to support it. Once it is set push it out of the mold, then make another one so you have one for each end. Now to make our road. I am making this fairly thick as it needs to support the weight of the bridge without breaking. Spread it out smoothly and let it start to set. Then take a ruler and trim it straight making sure it is the right width to fit on your bridge towers. If you are not sure make it narrower than you think because you don't want to put it all together and then it not fit. Then place another sheet of baking paper over the top and something heavy to keep it from curling up because chocolate tends to curl as it sets. Top make the across parts of the bridge draw two lines on baking paper the width of the road that you've just done and then put that over the template. Pipe a box with a criss cross in the middle and then pipe more boxes but leave them open on one side because we are going to join them up tot he ones that we have already done. To put the bridge together take one side and pipe some chocolate across at the road level and add the road on top. Next on the lower level add one of the criss crossed boxes at a time following the curve of the bridge around as you go. Once you've done that then repeat that for the top of the bridge as well. Once that is completed then carefully add more chocolate along the road, around the top and the middle then quickly add the other side of the bridge quickly before that sets and then line that up straight.. Cover a cake board in foil and then using either white chocolate coloured with oil based food colouring or blue candy melts cover the entire board in a thin layer. Use a palette knife and run it back and forth from one side to side to create that rippled water effect across the board. Use your template to measure how far apart the land needs to be and add some dark green chocolate. Followed by some lighter green on top. Before it sets take a knife or a fork and gently poke it into the chocolate and quickly pull up to create some texture sort of grass or bush effect onto your chocolate . Once that is set add your bridge towers and then use the template to get them in the correct position make sure they are the right distance apart and on the right angle and use some melted chocolate to secure them in place. Then finally and very carefully add the delicate bridge on top. If you need to transport it the keep the bridge part off and flat and seperate in an esky until you get to your location. Subscribe to How To Cook That for more cakes, chocolate and dessert creations. Click here to go through to the channel, here for last weeks video and here to go the how to cook that website. And I'll put all of those links in the description below as well for those of you who are using phones and ipads where the annotations don't work yet. If you make a chocolate bridge make sure you take a photo for me and you can upload it in the comments section on the website. Have a great week and I'll see you Friday [music: The Boat Song by Set Sail used with permission]