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I'm making a birthday cake for a friend of ours, and I decided to see just how fancy I could get with it. It's a dark chocolate cake with a white chocolate buttercream frosting. I wanted to make some roses to use in decorating it, and I'm not at all certain that I'd be able to make them with the frosting. So I looked around and found a recipe for modeling chocolate (also known as chocolate clay). Dead easy to make, melt some chocolate and mix in a bit of light corn syrup so you wind up with a fairly stiff taffy like material. It hardens somewhat when it sits at room temperature, but softens up and becomes easily workable with just a little bit of kneading. It melts smoothly when you eat it, and tastes of whatever chocolate you made it with. I used dark chocolate to match the cake. The roses I've made look fantastic. After I've got the cake all frosted and decorated I'll post pics.
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You're only delaying the inevitable, you run at your own expense. The repo man gets paid to chase you. ~Argabarga -
Modeling... I was imaging something like the girls who hijacked the UPS truck, wearing only chocolate syrup...I am not an a**hole. I am a hemorrhoid. I irritate a**holes!
Procrastination: Forward planning to insure there is something to do tomorrow.
Derails threads faster than a pocket nuke. -
Ditto, except with guysQuoth dalesys View Post
Seriously, modeling chocolate sounds like fun. Something else to do on these long, cold days when there's too much snow to go anywhere!When you start at zero, everything's progress.Comment
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Pics! Except for the writing, it came out really nice! Especially when you consider that this is my first ever attempt at decorating a cake. The roses and cats are both made from modeling chocolate. The cats were cut out free form by hand, no stencils or cookie cutters.Attached FilesLast edited by Kittish; 02-22-2015, 02:32 AM.You're only delaying the inevitable, you run at your own expense. The repo man gets paid to chase you. ~ArgabargaComment
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The cats are amazing, the roses are lovely, the icing 'trimming' is a perfect backdrop. I know I'd be delighted if someone made that for me!
What did you make the leaves with?Seshat's self-help guide:
1. Would you rather be right, or get the result you want?
2. If you're consistently getting results you don't want, change what you do.
3. Deal with the situation you have now, however it occurred.
4. Accept the consequences of your decisions.
"All I want is a pretty girl, a decent meal, and the right to shoot lightning at fools." - Anders, Dragon Age.Comment
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The leaves are more of the white chocolate buttercream, with a bit of gel food coloring added. The writing is the same thing, except with purple gel coloring.You're only delaying the inevitable, you run at your own expense. The repo man gets paid to chase you. ~ArgabargaComment
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Those are some most excellent roses, and I know a thing or three about making roses. I personally find modeling chocolate frustrating to work with. give me gumpaste, and I will give you a rose that looks like a real flower. Give me modeling chocolate, and I will fling a mushy flower-ish lump at you.My webcomic is called Sidekick Girl. Val's job is kinda like retail, except instead of corporate's dumb policies, it's the Hero Agency, and the SC's are trying to take over the world.Comment
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Those roses are perfect! And the cats!
How pretty!!
When you start at zero, everything's progress.Comment
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*ahem*
where is mine?!?!?!
(that looks so awesome!)The report button - not just for decoration
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Sitting in your pantry waiting for you to assemble the ingredients?Quoth iradney View Post
I'd offer to send you some, but somehow I just don't think it'd ship well. Especially not internationally.
CoffeeMonkey- I found the trick to working with the modeling chocolate was to not overwork it at any one time. If it started getting too soft, set that lump aside and wait for it to harden back up a bit. I also trimmed the bottoms of the roses flat very early on, so they'd sit properly, then made my petals in pairs by flattening out a small ball of the chocolate into an oval then cutting the oval in half. The flat side of each one is the bottom of the petal, and with a bit of practice I got so I could pretty reliably keep the bottom of the flower mostly flat. That seemed to work out well for keeping my petals from getting all out of shape. Never worked with gum paste, so I don't know how it compares on handling. I did consider trying to use premade fondant to make the flowers, but decided that chocolate would suit the cake better.
Once I'd had the idea for putting cats on the cake, I just couldn't resist doing it. The ones on the cake are actually about the third attempt I made at making cats. The first two I tried sculpting 3d cats, but I couldn't get them to stay together. Bits kept falling off because I couldn't get the chocolate to meld back to itself. And a cat is JUST complex enough that I couldn't really manage to make one out of a single lump, not and keep it small enough.You're only delaying the inevitable, you run at your own expense. The repo man gets paid to chase you. ~ArgabargaComment
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