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Perfect chocolate curls? You need patience and the right tool. Have perfect chocolate curls eluded you? With these tricks, success is assured.

The secrets are the tool - a standard flexible-blade vegetable peeler - and the technique - getting chocolate to just the right temperature. White and milk chocolate curl most readily; dark chocolate can be finicky, though not too difficult to work with.

~=> Easy Chocolate Curls For a quantity of curls, warm each bar as you need it. Use a regular oven if your microwave is 500 watts or less; lower-wattage microwaves can heat unevenly.

Place chocolate, scored side down, on a sheet of cooking parchment or foil, uncovered, at full power (100%) until edges of chocolate give slightly to gentle fingertip pressure. Warm for 15 seconds, check, then warm for 5 seconds at a time until chocolate tests as indicated. Total time will be 15-40 seconds, depending on oven's wattage and the kind of chocolate.

In a conventional oven, place chocolate on foil on oven rack in a 150~ oven until edges give slightly to gentle fingertip pressure, 1 to 1-1/2 minutes.

If chocolate gets too soft, let it cool for a few minutes.

Set chocolate on paper or foil on a counter, aligning a long sdie of bar with counter edge; let paper or foil hang over edge. Stnad with your hip to the counter. With 1 hand, gently hold end of chocolate bar closest to you. With the other, hold peeler perpendicular to edge and rest blade on opoosite end of bar. Firmly and evenly, pull peeler toward you along bar, peeling off chocolate to make a curl.

If chocolate strip splays out instead of curling, neaten it up with your fingers. Some curls will wrap around themselves; other break off in short sections.

With tip of peeler, lift each curl to a flat surface tocool and firm. Turn paper 180~ and repeat to make curls from poopsite long side of bar. As chocoalte bar gets thin, it's inclined to break; just pull peeler over smaller pieces.

If chocolate is too firm to curl smoothly, or if it firms as you work, rewarm in a microwave oven on full power (100%) for 5-10 seconds at a time, or in a conventional oven at 150~ for 30 seconds.

Save chocolate scraps for other uses. [Note: I really can't believe they *really* put that last sentence in. *Scraps*? of chocolate??? Get real.] If made ahead, store curls airthight up to 1 week. A 3-ounce bar makes 1-3/4 to 2-1/4 ounces (1-1/2 to 2 cups) of curls. [ Sunset magazine, sometime

** -=> this comes from the bottom of the files of Shelley Rodgers <=-