Freshman Ellis Langford carefully stirred the melting chocolate chips before placing them in the microwave for another 30 seconds or so.
"We've learned to temper the chocolate with gradual, even heating, so that it cools into a stable form," explained Susan Born (S.B. 1998 in chemical engineering), a member of the Lab for Chocolate Science, a student club that selected its name for the acronym. Club members enjoyed claiming to be members of the LCS until, Born pointed out, the Lab for Computer Science announced its new name and acronym, the Computer Science and Artificial Inteilligence Lab (CSAIL).
Born and Langford were managing the club's IAP course, "Chocolate Sculpture," held Jan. 26 in the Experimental Study Group's kitchen on the sixth floor of Building 24.
The course drew about 50 students from MIT, Wellesley and Harvard. "Everybody loves chocolate," said Sloan School graduate student Joh Klein as she waited in line for her cup of melted chocolate.
The sculptures were tiny, and most had a short life. Each student dripped chocolate or squeezed it through plastic wrap onto wax paper to form whatever shapes came to mind--rings, hearts, circles, blobs, letters or turtles and crabs--before eating them.
