I keep a running list of tools I absolutely need and must acquire at all costs. I’ll admit that this list tends to be much longer than reasonable, and completely out of proportion with the capacity of our kitchen or the actual utility of said tools.
But hey, some girls buy shoes, I buy kitchen toys! (Well, shoes too, but I’m trying to make a point, here.)
This “fourchette à tremper” is an item I recently crossed off my list. It is what chocolate makers use to make chocolate-dipped things : you melt some chocolate in a wide and not too shallow pan, you balance whatever it is you’d like to dip onto the tines of the fork, lower the fork into the chocolate, take it out, and deposit the coated bite on a special non-stick plastic sheet (“feuille guitare”) for it to dry and harden.
The fork is also used to form the little ribbed lines you can sometimes see on chocolate bites. Just after depositing the coated confection on the sheet, while the chocolate is still soft, you gently apply the fork tines on top of the chocolate, then lift it up and towards you : the chocolate coating will sort of follow the fork’s movement, and will keep the imprint of the tines.
