Engineering chocolate

Catering and sculpture are generally thought of as rather different areas of expertise, but just as many sculptors enjoy munching chocolate, some chefs feel the need to make their name by turning foodstuffs into food sculptures. Chefs such as Amaury Guichon, co-founder of the Pastry Academy in Las Vegas, who for his latest extravagance in chocolate built a simulacrum of a robotic arm, complete with some moving, though sadly not powered, joints.

What fascinated me watching its construction was the balance between employing solid engineering principles involved to ensure it would maintain integrity and fakery, with moulded bolt heads being tacked on in place of actually connecting components with chocolate dowels. Quite honestly, as someone who struggles to hold a paint roller the right way up, I thought the skill demonstrated spray painting the finished model was equal to that of constructing it. All that yellow and not a paint run in sight!