Holographic chocolate

[winjim]

It's my wife's birthday in a couple of weeks so I've started thinking about cakes. Came across this idea so I thought I'd try it out as a topping.

Instructions are here:

https://www.instructables.com/Holographic-Rainbow-Chocolate/

Diffraction film came today so I thought I'd have a little practice just as proof of concept and I think it's come out alright. You have to make sure it catches the light just right but there's a definite diffraction pattern on it. Should look good if I make a decent enough cake to go underneath it and make it into nice shapes.

To be clear, there's nothing on this, no coating or anything. It's pure chocolate.

 

[AndyRM]

That's very, very cool.

 

[IanSmithCSE]

Good morning,

That looks interesting and fun.

So I got distracted and found this article from 2014 where the authors talk about making moulds for mass production.
https://www.npr.org/sections/thesal...ok-as-beautiful-as-they-taste?t=1645593874166
https://morphotonix.com/portfolio/

Does anyone remember there being a mass produced chocolate bar like this? Maybe the novelty versus the cost of marketing a new chocolate bar just didn't work out.

Bye

Ian

 

[winjim]

Good morning,

That looks interesting and fun.

So I got distracted and found this article from 2014 where the authors talk about making moulds for mass production.
https://www.npr.org/sections/thesal...ok-as-beautiful-as-they-taste?t=1645593874166
https://morphotonix.com/portfolio/

Does anyone remember there being a mass produced chocolate bar like this? Maybe the novelty versus the cost of marketing a new chocolate bar just didn't work out.

Bye

Ian

You've got handling and storage to think about. Any smudges or knocks and the effect's ruined, it's very delicate.

Some of the pictures I've seen of the home made version look a lot better than mine. I don't know if it's the lighting or if it's the chocolate itself. The diffraction film might also make a difference, I've got 500/mm but you can get 1000/mm. I also didn't spend time tempering the chocolate, I'll take more care when I do it properly.

 

[PeteXXX]

I never knew there were 6 stages of crystallisation for chocolate!
Every day's a learning day..

 

[Jody]

That looks great!

Might have to be giving that a go myself.

 

[winjim]

Birthday Black Forest Gateau with holochoc topping.

Candle effect

 

[Jody]

Wow. The finish looks really good

 

[winjim]

Wow. The finish looks really good

With proper tempering it's worked really well. I've figured out though that the reason it doesn't look as spectacular as some I've seen is that they used double axis diffraction film where mine is single axis. So it kind of works best in one dimension. You also need a strong, directional light source. It's not as impressive in daylight, for example.

There are pictures online of people using it to diffract lasers but I don't have one to test it out with.