Chocolate twigs - can i make these without tempering the chocolate?

[lisbapalea]

I have been sucked in by my daughter's detailed requests for her birthday cake and need to make some chocolate twigs - a bit like these ones - which I want to use around the edge of her cake:

tenplay.com.au/channel-ten/masterchef/recipes/chocolate-forest-floor

As I am not on GBBO or masterchef would it matter if I tried to make the twigs by just melting dark choc, piping it into twig shapes and then deocrating the cake with them that way, rather than being fancy pants and tempering the chocolate first?

Does the tempering do anything other than make the chocolate shiny? I am happy to have dull chocolate twigs if it saves me the faff of tempering (I don't have a cooking thermometer).

Any advice appreciated!

Bump - any chocolate twig experts out there?!

I don't think you need to temper it.

But I would take the easy way out and break up a few matchmakers (because I'm lazy!)

Tempering just makes the chocolate glossy (I'm fairly sure there's no other purpose to it?) so I'm sure it'll be fine to skip that step.

I've made choc swirly type things to decorate cakes before, I didn't temper the choc and they were fine, just drew them on some grease proof paper and left them to set. Might be worth cutting the paper up first to make it easier to peel off

Matchmakers are an amazing suggestion - thank you!!