FIGURES, FACES, LOLLIPOPS AND FLOWERS ALL LOOK GOOD COLOURED

Coloured chocolate starts as a base made from white chocolate or plain Milky Bars.

A normal amount to work with would be composed of 8 small bars.

Melt in the usual way but using a small wooden spoon, stir all the time as this chocolate becomes hard and solid if not stirred continuously. Do not let water get anywhere near to your melting chocolate. It will appear chalky as it heats.

When warm add about 1 Tablespoon of fresh unflavoured cooking oil - I use Olivine Oil -by making a well in the chocolate and adding the oil to the well - stir and mix very well.

Take the saucepan off the heat before the chocolate is fully melted. The heat of the bowl will keep the chocolate hot enough to melt.

DO NOT ATTEMPT TO COMPLETELY MELT THE CHOCOLATE OVER THE HEAT OR THE MIXTURE WILL ATTAIN TOO HIGH A TEMPERATURE AND BURN.

Flavour if required - mint is always a good flavour - using approximately 25 drops of oil to this amount of chocolate base.

Divide white chocolate into 5 or 6 small cups - yogurt containers or the cups of an egg poacher work very well - keep warm but not above 20c.

Beat each cup well as the more this chocolate is beaten the smother and shinier the fluid mixture

Leaving one cup as white (to help in adjusting the colours in the other cups) add about 7 drops of cane spirit to each of the other cups and the heaped end of a teaspoon of required colour powder (not liquid food colouring) Obtainable from Strachan's Pharmacy and Borrowdale Pharmacy both in Harare.

The mixture will look almost like jelly when you start working the spirit and colour into the base. When you stop stirring the chocolate will look quite firm until it is stirred up again

Using good quality paint brushes (small good quality makeup brushes work well) start painting the moulds. Hold the trays up to the light so you can see what you are doing - check the front of the mould as you go along for thickness and colour mixing.

If you are using faces moulds and are colouring the hair make the edges of the hair thin and the centre part thicker so that the skin with show through in the right places when you fill the mould with pink or flesh coloured chocolate.

Flowers can be painted in a variety of colours or one contrasting colour.

Leave the painted moulds to set between additions of each colour so that no bleeding takes place.

Remember to bang moulds well after each colour addition and particularly after adding the main filling colour to stop air bubbles forming.

Leave moulds to set - small ones in the refrigerator and large ones at room temperature to stop them from cracking

YOU WILL FIND THAT YOUR COLOURS WILL BECOME MORE BRILLIANT WHEN SET BUT THAT, LIKE FLAVOURS, THEY TEND TO FADE WITH TIME