You’ve probably seen this garnishing trick before, perhaps atop a marbled cheesecake or in a swirled dessert sauce at a restaurant. We have used it to dress up Lori Longbotham’sWinter Vegetable Soup with Coconut Milk & Pear. It’s a handy technique to know, and you’ll look like a pro every time you use it.

The swirly marbled look is made by either layering two smooth, contrasting liquids or by putting them next to each other and then dragging a skewer through them. The marbled look on thesePeppermint Browniesbegins with parallel lines of melted white chocolate on top of chocolate ganache. To garnish the soup, we used a squirt bottle to place a few drops of coconut milk on the soup and then dragged the skewer through the drops.

For variation, use one big dot of garnish, many small ones, or anything in between. And instead of the skewer, try a toothpick, chopstick, table knife, or fork to create different effects.