Saturday, September 14, 2013

Experimenting with modeling chocolate...

You can make some really cool stuff with gumpaste, but when you try eating it, it's not so great. So, I have been playing around with modeling chocolate lately, so you can eat the decorations without them tasting "nasty." The latest cake I experiemented with was a flower basket for a little girl's birthday. Of course they would want to eat the flowers, so instead of making them out of gumpaste, I used modeling chocolate. It is a little tricky to work with, but of course, they will taste yummy. The things that I don't like about making flowers from modeling chocolate is that you can't thin out the petals like you can with gumpaste, so they don't look as realistic as they normally would. Also, I noticed that the airbrush color does not go on as well. I had a problem with it beading up and taking forever to dry, so I guess I will have to stick with other coloring methods. Also, the modeling chocolate has a yellow tint, so the color is not as true as it is with gumpaste. I really like the way the basket turned out. It was made with 1/2 modeling chocolate and 1/2 fondant...still tastes good. I like the way it resembled a real basket. For the handle, I wound the 1/2 and 1/2 combination around a 1/2 inch clear vinyl tubing piece, and then let it dry for a couple of days. To insert it into the cake, I put 2 hollow plastic dowels in the cake and then inserted the ends of the handle into those, which gave it more stability. The vinyl tubing kept the handle from cracking. 

See how the basket looks real
Modeling chocolate roses
Mums from modeling chocolate
Leaves and daisy from modeling chocolate - not bad, but thicker than I like
1/2 chocolate, 1/2 fondant around vinyl tubing-I ended up cutting some off of each end
Allow to dry a few days

Monday, September 9, 2013

Harvest Time!!

For those of you with a sweet tooth, this kind of gardening may be right up your alley. First you have to start with that rich dark soil... crushed Oreos make the perfect "soil." Just put the cookies whole into the food processor and whirl away until you have Oreo dirt. Then model veggies and fruits from 1/2 modeling chocolate/ 1/2 fondant. Use your fondant tool to add details, but mainly just use your imagination and hands to make them into fun veggie and fruit shapes, and then cut out leaves to match each kind, then shade both the veggies and leaves with a little petal dust. Push aside a little of the "soil" on top of each cupcake, so the veggies and fruits will stick to the chocolate buttercream underneath. No need to water or weed this garden. The produce will be gone soon enough.