Master chocolateers have proven that the impossible is possible by creating a working chocolate teapot.
An utterly useless idea is often said to be as "useful as a chocolate teapot", yet scientists and engineers at the Nestle Product Technology Centre this week have turned the impractically of the concept on its head by actually managing to build a fully functioning teapot made entirely out of chocolate.
John Costello and his team found that the secret to enabling the teapot to withstand being filled with hot water was to build it up from layers of dark chocolate within a special silicon mould.
"If you pour the water in a certain way and you don't stir inside, and let it brew like you would normally brew a cup of tea, and just let it stand for a little while – when you pour it, what happens is that the chocolate on the inside of the shell melts but doesn't move anywhere," said Costello.
In total the process of building the teapot took around two-and-a-half hours.