How They Did It -- Chocolate Eiffel Tower

I heard back from the folks at Sweet Earth about their chocolate engineering marvel (see photo and post below). Here is how Tom Neuhaus describes the process:

"It took me 2 months to make. I downloaded a graphic of the tower and then converted all the dimensions to ratios, then used those ratios to make a 4 1/2 foot tower. It was made of solid 49% semisweet, Fair Trade Organic chocolate. The basic structure was the separation of slabs of thick chocolate (the "stages") by small chocolate girders (1 foot long). Everything was glued together with melted, tempered semisweet. I piped the crisscross design on parchment and glued that to the surface of the girders. The whole tower came apart into 5 pieces which we
schlepped up to San Francisco in boxes. The base was made of plywood. I surrounded the tower with white/semisweet trees."

Thanks, Tom.

So while it looked too good to eat, it was totally edible.
Any children reading this -- see, it does pay to learn math.
Be sure to check out Sweet Earth's chocolates and website at
http://www.sweetearthchocolates.com