Two Part Mold for Chocolate Using TinkerCad & a 3D Printer

Using TinkerCad and my 3D printer I created a simple 2 part mold to make a solid chocolate Penguin in "One Step"!

• TinkerCad
• 3D Printer (with Food Grade Filament)
• Assorted Melted Chocolate

Using simple shapes in TinkerCad design a Penguin. I started with a basic sphere stretched it to and oval as the main body. Then I duplicated it to make a white belly that stuck out a bit. I then flattened two ovals to make the wings. Added two rounds for eyes and a cone for the beak. Lastly added a half an oval for the feet as a base.

You can make anything you want. I chose a penguin but you could do a logo or individual letters anything that comes to your mind. The only caveat is it needs to be symmetrical so that when it is sliced down the middle for the two halves of the mold that there is nothing that will get trapped when you pull the final chocolate out. I made sure the center of the wings was where the slit in the mold was so that they were not "hooked" into one half of the mold or the other.

Now we use TinkerCad to create the negative mold. Take the penguin and combine it into one object using the combine tool, lay it horizontally and bring it slightly above the base plane. Create two boxes that when stacked cover the penguin. Duplicate the penguin and turn them into negative images "holes". Lay these negative penguins in the boxes and join them in order to take out the half penguin shape from each mold. Create a lip around one box and an indent on the other in order for the boxes to fit inside each other and be leak proof with the melted chocolate. The last step is to remove the bottom of the box in order to have a hole in which to fill the mold with the melted chocolate.

Export the mold from TinkerCad as an STL. Slice the files very fine to make the molds as smooth as possible. Load the files on your 3D printer and using a food grade filament print the molds. The two half's of the mold should fit together easily but tight enough not to leak. My fit was good enough that if I put them together I could lift the top one up slowly and the bottom half would not fall off.

First you need to temper your chocolate I will not explain the process here as there are many instructions available. I used the microwave option in this Instructable: https://www.instructables.com/Lacy-Chocolate-Dessert-Bowls/

I needed three bowls of chocolate white, dark and milk chocolate. Before I added the chocolate to the mold I placed dome vegetable oil on some paper towel and lightly coated the mold with oil. I took the front mold and filled the beak, eyes and belly of the penguin with white chocolate. I placed this in the freezer to set for a bit as if I added the dark chocolate right away, when everything was melted, the colors would mix an not layer like I wanted. As this was just out of the freezer the dark chocolate solidified quickly as well. Next I put the two halves of the mold together and fastened then with a rubber band. By this time the mold has returned to room temperature and I could fill it with the rest of the dark chocolate. Back to the freezer to set a bit and then lastly fill the final "feet" with the milk chocolate and then back to the freezer.

Remove the mold from the freezer and remove the elastic band. Now comes the scary part to remove the penguin from the mold!. Cross your fingers & separate the mold. In my case the front half came of first. Unfortunately the beak broke off, I think I did not get the vegetable oil into the beak hole which would have made it release better. Next press up on the feet and it should release from the back half of the mold. Using a wood skewer I added some more white chocolate in order to form a replacement beak.

I placed the Penguin on some white chocolate bark to simulate an "Ice Flow" :-)

**In hindsight a small protrusion like the beak in a solid mold is probably not a great idea. Oiling the mold better or making the beak less pronounced (or even molded as a sperate piece and joined after the fact). An other option I may try is to use a flexible filament in order to have a more flexible mold.