The Chocolate Flower Pinwheel

This is another very easy one that will impress your friends with very little special experience necessary. We like to call it the chocolate flower pinwheel, and it's a great way to get into freeform latte drawing. You will need a spoon, a small pointed metal object similar to one of those really tiny screwdrivers you would use to take a apart a cell phone, and a narrow-tipped squeeze bottle filled with your favorite chocolate sauce.

This is the first tutorial where we will be incorporating the use of chocolate sauce in your latte art. Not only is chocolate sauce very tasty, it's awesome for accentuating your designs and adding contrast around the edges. Not only should you use chocolate sauce for this design, we highly encourage you to try it out in every design you make.

Although the chocolate flower pinwheel is one of the easiest designs you will make, we want to remind you again and again that all good latte art depends on great espresso and amazing milk foam. You should remember to place the steam wand at an angle to the steam pitcher to get the milk to swirl around the pitcher as this will make the best milk foam for you latte art creations. We'll never tire of putting this disclaimer in every article as it is absolutely vital to what you are trying to do.

To begin your chocolate flower pinwheel design, start to pour the milk from on high and fill up the cup almost completely. Caution! Don't let any of the light foam rest on top of the crema just yet! Once the cup is mostly full, get your spoon out and scoop up some foam from the steam pitcher. You will want to create a medium-sized dot of foam as close to the middle of the cup as you can get it. You should probably use about two spoonfuls of milk foam to do this.

When your foam dot is in place, it's time to get the chocolate sauce. You won't really be drawing with the chocolate sauce so much as you will be using it to create an outline around your dot. The dot in the middle of your latte should be white in the middle with chocolate edges. When you have done this part, you will want to create another chocolate ring about one centimeter out from the first chocolate ring. You will be ready to begin drawing with the tiny screwdriver when the top of your latte looks like two concentric chocolate circles with a white dot in the middle that borders the inner chocolate circle.

At this point in the process, you should be ready to draw with your screwdriver. Start from the center of the white dot and bring the screwdriver all the way to the edge of the coffee cup. Your flower pinwheel design now has one point. You will want it to have six points that are evenly distributed throughout the wheel shape, so begin the process again and make the new point come out from the center of the design at a 60 degree angle from the previous one. Once you have done this five more times for the remaining spokes, you will see a distinct six pointed pinwheel shape with points that appear as though they come from the center.

But you aren't done yet. This is where your pinwheel starts to look more like a flower. There should be an empty space in between each point on your six-pointed design. To finish the flower, just take the screwdriver and bring it from the edge of the coffee cup to the middle of the design exactly in between each spoke. This will naturally pull the chocolate sauce to the center of your latte art, giving the distinct flower shape. When you are done, your flower should have six points at its edge with six other points in between those points that come to the center of the design. You really should see a flower with six leaves. If you don't, you probably made a mistake somewhere along the line.

This relatively easy design will impress even the most hardened latte art skeptic amongst your friends. Just don't show them how you did it. Get them to believe you did it all with the magic of the pour. We can see it in the horizon. Your latte artist star is rising!

Learn more about making Latte Art in our Latte Art How To!