How to make modelling chocolate/chocolate fondant roses! No fancy tools required!

                                                   Modelling Chocolate Roses

Also for part of my GCSE course, the paste I showed you how to make yesterday, I later used to make modelling chocolate roses as a development decoration for my chocolate pavlova!

Now I don't know what cake fanatic hasn't seen fondant/chocolate/some other form of decoration paste roses before, and as a cake fanatic myself, I am beyond experienced in seeing them too. I have, however, only tried this once as was always to scared to attempt these seemingly intricate and complicated decorations. This is not true! They are beyond simple, quick and easy to make, and please ignore all the suggested tools-you can make them by hand, from scratch, in no time.

1.So! Starting with your hand-made (Or shop-bought if you haven't read my last post) modelling chocolate or paste of some kind, roll it out on a surface dusted with icing powder to approximately a 1cm thickness.

2. Then cut out some small random, approximately somewhere between a square, a circle and a semi circle type shapes. (The size depends on how big you want your rose to be.)

3. Then shape them into approximate petal shapes! Think very, very undefined semi circle!

4. Fold your petal into a loose roll.

                        

5. Shape the next petal and wrap it around the first.

6. Repeat!

7. Keep repeating until you're happy with your rose!

 8. And there you have it!

How to make modelling chocolate from scratch! (Simple and quick with just 2 ingredients!!!)

 How to make modelling chocolate from scratch

So modelling chocolate! It's so flexible, it looks amazing and it tastes just perfect. When I first looked into using it as one of my cake decorating ingredients, I was a novice, and this means I was foolish enough to consider ordering it online in seemingly tiny amounts for ridiculous prices and additional post and packaging costs.

Firstly, if you are going to order online, in all fairness it's incredibly reliable, it comes in a range of flavours and colours, it's so easy to use and although I personally feel it's expensive; there are good reasons why.

So if you are on a last-minute basis with no time to make it yourself or are just plain lazy I would reccomend Beau:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Beau-Dark-modelling-chocolate/dp/B007K6VZHY/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1371318423&sr=8-6&keywords=modelling+chocolate

The great thing with modelling chocolate is though it seems like a tiny amount (Which also saves storage space) it somehow goes miles!

However! There is a cheaper, simpler way which will make you about 500g of modelling chocolate (which lasts months in the fridge) in minutes using only 2 ingredients!

You will need... (Amounts depend on how much you wish to make, this makes about 700g)

-400g chocolate of any flavour (I used a mixture of dark and milk to give an amazing taste and slightly silkier texture!)
-1 small tin golden syrup!

P.s please ignore the name tags this was for my food tech exam!

1. Bring a small pan of water to the hob and break the chocolate into a glass bowl placed over it.

2. Melt the chocolate...

3. Completely!

4. Pour in the syrup about 1-2 tbsp at a time and stir. If the consistency is not correct, add a little more until it looks like...

 5. This! It should come away from the sides of the bowl into a ball.

6. Pour it into a sandwich bag.

7. Place in the fridge for approximately 1 1/2-2 hours

8. Take it out and there you have it!

9. Fully mouldable!

And for some inspiration on what to do next...

M&Ms and Kit-Kat Cake

                                                       M&Ms and Kit-Cat Cake

Yet another National trend. These cakes seem to be a complete hit and whilst I like to go with the trend without being a complete follower, I was sucked into this one with the left over batter of the second chocolatecakezilla. There's always high demand for chocolate cake around Valentine's day.

There's a lot more you can do with a cake like this. Even a pretty ribbon would've jazzed it up a little. Truthfully, however, this cake was tiny and unwanted, and not as tall as the kit-kats so I had to bulk it up with three bags of M and Ms. On top of all that, I had no where to place it so my brother, painfully alike to me in the way that he also attended a party without romantic plans. took it along. The guests ended up going to the cinema and returning the cake with no M and Ms on it. Violation at its worst. 

It did, however, produce the opportunity for my mum and brother to try my rising-to-fame chocolate cake for the first time, the feedback, as always, was pretty flattering.

Comon, don't tell me it's not tempting:

Now, I'm not going to claim this was an original idea, it's been done by pretty much every baker out there today but it's a simple, chocolatey and colourful idea if you've ever got some spare Kit Kats lying around.

I personally believe it originated from none other than Lorraine Pascale with her 'I can't believe you made that cake'

But nonetheless, I commend the alternative and even less healthy tributes being payed to it. So to sum-up the National interest in adaptions of this particular model, I'll conclude with some pictures:

Chocolate Pavlova

                                                        Chocolate Pavlova

So, as one of my GCSE options I took Food Technology. Right now I'm sure you're deliberating between whether I am insane or just plain stupid. Well, I am both of these things but neither justify my 'option' to take this subject at GCSE-sadly I also attend a school which somewhere along the line hired an equally insane and stupid staff member who made it compulsory for us to continue with our year 9 technology option. 

Whether it was drugs, a sadist-movement, or just pure obliviousness, someone, somewhere in my school actually believed it was a good idea.

I was young and foolish in year 8 and nobody warned me I'd be suffering the revision of industrial cleaning methods three years later for a subject nobody respects, in my defense. Anyhow, to the point, as part of my practical exam I had to make a dessert displaying high skill, I chose a chocolaty twist on our classic meringue dessert: the pavlova.

I got this recipe from joyofbaking.com which, by the way, is AMAZING:

                                     http://www.joyofbaking.com/PavlovaChocolate.html

Simple and easy to follow as well as completely delectable! Although I must recommend that you grate the chocolate-don't chop it! I made the fatal mistake of roughly slicing mine and when I carefully and delicately poured my fluffy mixture into its piping bag, the chocolate clogged the nozzle and catastrophe struck. 

I'd take you through my experience triggered by this piping-bag disaster, but it is too traumatic for me to revisit. All I can say is after making it out of that room alive not only on that day but on my re-run of the failed practical, I shall never take calm, enjoyed cooking for granted again, and I cannot express the euphoria of saying, "I NEVER HAVE TO DO FOOD TECH AGAIN!"

Cheers! (I don't have anything drinkable so have a photo of a non-alcoholic chocolate pavlova instead.)

(Decorated with white chocolate creme patissiere, chocolate buttercream, dried fruit and nuts, chocolate shavings and Thorntons' valentines chocolates-which unsurprisingly due to earlier posts-I bought myself in a WHS sale.)

Cake International Cupcakes, Cookies and Models (2013)

            Cake International:Cupcakes, Cookies and Models (2013)

So I've already taken you through just a few of my favourite (Out of the many amazing) cakes from Cake International 2013. I've also noted that this is not all there was! There were stalls, products, book signings and demonstrations, but before we even get onto any of that-there's the matter of cupcakes, cookies and models.

I don't think it's quite so easy to order these but my favourite cupcakes were absolutely these baby shower ones! As I've said before; I tend to base my preferences on idea and after seeing thousands of baby cupcake photos on Google Images or Facebook or even in reality, I can tell you these are the ones that really stood out!

A sonogram cupcake! That is the use of edible printer icing at it's finest! Love it.

And here are some other pretty awesome designs:

Although these aren't especially adorable and don't take us back to childhood memories-I can't deny the awe inspired by the fact that those flowers...are cakes?!

Cartoon dogs, cats and mice! Who wouldn't want these? And men in bubble baths! Where will the madness end?!

Now I've never been a huge fan of '101
Dalmations' and I don't actually know a thing about 'Alice in Wonderland'...I think I've never seen it...But this is not about the movies! It's about the cakes. Which are pretty cool.

And of course-The Hungry Caterpillar cupcakes! Now here's a childhood memory I do love, if you didn't read it-read it now! It's amazing and you're never too old to ensure you understand the sentiment between tasty Caterpillar treats.

There were also a couple of pretty shortbreads-recipe inclusive!

Now Shortbread's not really my thing (Hence the title-CAKE Guru) but I have to admit, these are too pretty to ignore. I'm also a Shortbread novice so I really do commend the skill that goes into these! 

And although this last little section may not technically be a category, it deserves a mention. So here's to the edible novelties of the fondant World:

From adorable farmyard and...less conventional but equally as adorable wales...

To marzipan teddies, dogs, cats, monkeys, pandas and er...is that a giraffe?

To my absolute favourite! Simply because I've wasted years of childhood on Nintendo consoles with this pair and partly because the fact that Mario is riding Yoshi which just cracks me up.

Then of course it gets a little weirder with an edible Henry the Eighth... I'm not too sure whose idea this was and what the selling point is supposed to be but hey, I'm no marketing expert!










And last but not least, who wouldn't want to eat their own baby! Common practice but something I will never understand. (Sadly like most aspects of society.)