Manatees 'R' Us

man•a•tee

noun \ˈma-nə-ˌtē\

According to Merriam-Webster, the definition of a manatee is...

: any of a genus (Trichechus of the family Trichechidae) of chiefly tropical aquatic sirenian mammals that differ from the related dugong especially in having the tail rounded
Now, you’re probably wondering why I am giving you the definition of this marine mammal? I was asked to create SIX of these lovely creatures for ABC’s hit show, Cougar Town!

 I have many resources here in Southern California, but I sure wish I had access to a Manatees ‘R’ Us at the time! When I received the call, I had approximately 12 hours to create SIX chocolate manatees. Each manatee required 10 pounds of chocolate…EACH! (Did I mention that I had to make SIX of them??)

My job is exciting and unpredictable! Besides having a same day deadline, and only ONE manatee mold to work with, it took multiple steps to create each one. We made a dye, poured a cast, and let the chocolate set. Because I couldn’t refrigerate the chocolate, I had to wait patiently for each chocolate manatee to set at room temperature...

Here's a clip of Courtney Cox with one of the chocolate manatees we worked so hard on. =)