Chocolate Dinosaur

This instructable will show you the process for how I made my valentines gift, a chocolate dinosaur (holding a flower / anything). It was fairly simple, but quite time consuming, and difficult to make without her noticing... I didn't realize until this instructable that I may in fact have a dinosaur fetish (weird)

I started by creating a 3D cardboard dinosaur template using just my imagination, a marker, an x-acto blade, and some cardboard. I cut out several pieces of cardboard to create a (somewhat) rigid dinosaur of cardboard. Don't spend too much time on this step, it isn't that important, a crude model will work just fine.

 Next, I decided for no reason, except that it sounded good, to saran wrap / tin foil wrap the dinosaur model. In retrospect it was not necessary but may have helped slightly (it didn't take too much time either).

Next, I paper mache'd the model thickly. (sorry for the lack of pictures here)

 to make it a mold that allows for the inside to be chocolate, I had to cut apart my paper mache dinosaur and remove the insides (yum). To do this I used an x-acto blade to cut along the spine and various other places (use as few cuts as possible, see my pictures). I then re-attatched some of the cut off pieces.

I also duct taped the inside and some of the outsides to make it smoother and so that less material would transfer to the chocolate when completed.

 Now the fun part :)

Keep in mind that any chocolate that drips during this step is fair game for eating :)

Start by melting the chocolate (you can find other 'ibles on doing this). It is important to remember to be patient, melt the chocolate on a double broiler, on low heat, and also don't let water get into your chocolate!

I used more about 8 pounds of bakers chocolate which I found on sale for a dollar per pound (my lucky day).

Ready to pour?

This was the tricky part.

To do this part I used whatever I could to prop the pieces while I poured molten chocolate into them. I started with the four separate parts, shown in the previous step, and would pour the chocolate and then shake a bit and then let them individually harden in the freezer.

When I had all 4 parts each completed, I would tape over the connection between molds (leaving a small hole on top to pour through, I held them over the stove for a bit to let them melt just a bit and then poured more chocolate in between the molds. I wasn't sure if this would work, but my dinosaur seems to hold really stably together. I connected the two halves of the body first, then the tail, and lastly the neck / head.

 Finally, with all the mold parts together, I had to cut off all the undesired paper mache and duct tape. I wasn't sure how hard or easy this would happen... it wasn't too hard but it was kinda tedious and messy (poo). After taking it all off, I shaved sections off that looked bumpy or bad, or I would melt them into smoother sections, or even add chocolate with my finger where I thought it was necessary...

I plan to put a flower (or two, three, four hundred and eighty...) in the dinosaurs mouth, but I will wait until tomorrow evening to go get that...

hope she likes it :)




This instructable is entered in the Dinosaur Contest! (this is a really cool contest that deserves more participants, check it out!)