Excuse the sloppy photo–I took that at 7:35 this morning, in the middle of the morning rush–breakfasts, lunches, backpacks, permission slips, carpool–not a great moment to stop and take an artistic picture of a kitchen implement.
Because that is indeed a kitchen implement, not an instrument of torture, or defensive weapon (probably couldn’t get it through airport security, though). I use it to cut up chocolate. I cut up a lot of chocolate.
Here’s the thing about baking with chocolate–the hardest part is cutting up the chocolate. You can’t really expect to melt a solid block of chocolate, so you have to cut it up. You could use chips, but they just don’t taste as good. I really like Scharffen-Berger for baking (well, I like Valrhona and Callebaut, but they’re both stratospherically expensive, and harder to find), so I buy it in 9.5 ounce blocks and chunk it up as needed. The smaller you cut it, the better it melts. Thus–the wicked looking chopping tool.
I guess I could use a big knife, but honestly, I don’t trust my skills quite that much. A slab of solid chocolate requires a lot of effort to cut through–if I slip when I’m working that hard (and I’m really sort of a klutz), I’ll take off a finger. At least with this thing, the most damage I can do is a nasty pinch.
This is the one I have; it’s sturdy and heavy and seems to do fine in the dishwasher. You should get one. When you see the recipe I’m planning to post tomorrow, you’ll want to chop some chocolate.