MNN - Mother Nature Network

It’s been a while since I’ve explored the relationship between LED lighting and chocolate so here, just in time for the high holiday of edible Russell Stover-branded sentiments, is another lip-smacking mash-up of energy-efficient lighting and cocoa-based confections.

 

Produced for the just-concluded 2013 Stockholm Furniture Fair by designer Alexander Lervik in collaboration with Swedish LED specialists Saas Instruments, Lumière au Chocolat is what happens when a 1980s Dairy Queen commercial meets Scandinavian design — a decadent, high-concept lamp shade constructed from solid chocolate that melts into a pool of gooey fondue when the internal LED is switched on. Given that an LED is involved and not an incandescent bulb, the melt time of about 15 minutes is slow and sensual, not quick and sloppy — “I find it poetic, with complete darkness at first and then a tiny ray of light penetrates the dark chocolate,” says Lervik. Most conveniently, once finished poetically melting, the chocolate oozes into an integrated dish where it cools off and solidifies into bite-sized chunks. Or, I assume you could have some strawberries at the ready and feast from the melted lamp before it hardens.

Inspired by the manner in which the dawning sun peeks out across the horizon, Lervik explains that the “the lamp was initially cube-shaped, but once we determined how chocolate melts together we modified the shape to resemble a cut-off pyramid.” Pair with Victor Vetterlein's Bite Me desk lamp and you've got yourself a full-on and very illuminated dessert course.

 

Mood lighting, food lighting, edible art … I’m not exactly sure how to classify this. But if the below video doesn’t get chocolate lovers all worked up into a frenzy then I quit.