moulding chocolate

Mom is having a significant birthday in a few days, and for scheduling, the BIG PARTY was this weekend.

I offered to make her dessert. Upon asking her what she wanted, her quick response was Black Forest Cake – I got this!

We have a few varied dietary needs withithn the family realm though and so I also offered to bring something non-dairy/gluten free as a side snack for those folk.

Another awesome baker in the family, Sarah, offered to make a cake as well to cover the full-on healthy desssert option. Her cake is amazing:

My plans: cake, moulded roses as an accent, and a variant on my granny’s butterscotch cream pe – meringues …and then I went way off road for this “variant” – maple curd

Black Forest Cake :

3 layers of chocolate fudge cake – a box mix using the lower fat option – baked in 8 inch pans
500 ml Whipping cream with added Oatker Stabilizer as this puppy has to travel!
1 can cherry pie filing – ½ sugar very – but yes, in a can
1 block from a full size bar, shaved chocolate – I hate making shaved chocolate, but I had a lovely Lindt dark chocolate bar so I was able to shave the minimum I needed to cover the patchy whipped cream sides of the cake.

Once the alyers were baked, I shaved the domes off the layers to make them flat. Assemble: layering cherry pie filling on the bottom layer, then filling and whipped cream on the 2nd layer. Cover with whipped cream in the style of your choosing and sprinkle the shaved chocolate and few saved cherries on top to make it pretty.

Meringues:

4 egg whites at room temperature
¼ tsp cream of tartar
¼ cup icing sugar – too much – I’ll use less in the future

Whip it up good, pipe onto parchment lined cookies sheets and bake for 55 minutes at 250 degrees, then turn off the oven and let them sit for another hour or more.

Maple Curd:

The big adventure…

In a sauce pan, mix together really well:

1 cup brown sugar
2 tablespoons coconut milk powder

Then add and mix all together

½ cup maple syrup
½ cup water

Cook on medium heat until it boils and stirring constantly let it reach 105 degrees on a thermometer – maybe higher would have been better – that’s just what I did.

In a small bowl, beat

4 egg yolks

Then pour some of the hot syrup into the bowl, mixxing to heat up the egg yolks, then pour the mix back into the sauce pan and let cook for another 5 minutes.

Bring off the heat and add

1tsp vanilla extract
1 tablespoon coconut oil

Stir well and pour into mason jars. Cool and store in fridge. Shake well before using.

This created a sauce that was drizzled over the meringues – giving a light sugar kick without dairy or gluten – but does have eggs.

Moulded chocolate roses:

Based on the method from my previous post about using moulded chocolate, I once again melted the chocolate and added the honey, then covered it with plastic and let it chill on the counter for a few horus while I did other stuff.

120 grams of white chocolate discs
1 ounce of honey by weight
I am canadian and thus bilingual when it comes to measurements – my scale has both

After kneading the chilled chocolate, I then played witha few ways to create the roses.

The first one was made by shaping small bits of chocolate into flattened petal shapes, but they had a lot of length to them and I wouold cut it off at the abse after adding it.

For the next one I tried rolling a tiny ball in my hand then squishing it with my thumb to create each petal, and placing them overlaping around a started bud/blob. This worked better and I continued with this method for the remaining ones.

Eventually, with both techniques, it built up a lot so I have to cut off the base on each one so that it was not too thick.

I think I did pretty well for a first time! *pats self on back*

For my final birthday cake, I wanted to create the chest burster, and was originally going to make another black forest cake, but we still had leftovers from the first one. I opted instead to go with a spice cake made from a french vanilla box cake mix.

I used the lower fat version on the box – using applesauce instead of oil, and added about 1 tsp of each – cardamon, allspice, cinnamon,and ginger to the cake batter.

I proceeded as per the box and chose to use 3 pans instead of 2 to speed the cooking time and it gave me more layering of flavours!

**Box mix of french vanilla – used apple sauce instead of oil and added spices!**

Once the cakes cooled, I wanted to have a nice gentle flavour without being too sweet, so I had purchased some pre-made dulce de leche, and mixed about ⅓ cup with a few tablespoons of heavy cream and whipped it all together. I think butterscotch pudding would work in a pinch too 🙂

**dulce de leche** **with heavy cream to be whipped together for the filling**

After slicing off the domes of the layers – making them all level, I stacked the three layers with apple sauce and the dulce/whip fillings.

**layering with apple sauce and then the cream filling.**

**the cream filling over the apple sauce.**

To create a nice base for the insertion of Fred, I built up the top with more sauce and cream filling and the sliced off domes, cutting the centre hole for Fred.

**Capping it off with one of the cut off parts – to create a mound at the top of the cake. The hole is for the little guy!**

And on to normal cake finishing – notes with each picture.

**Crumb coat then chill – butter cream mixed with Dulce de leche.**

**the finishing layer of** **buttercream**.

**I like to smooth out the surface with wet fingers – well washed, of course! It lets the sugar melt just a tiny bit and creates a smoother look.**

The final addition is – let’s call him Fred!

**Sketch from DragoArt which was my inspiration!**

I made him from rice crispie treats. I used pre-made ones as I did not want to purchase everything to make them and have leftover marshmallows etc. – but they are nut free…

The moulding chocolate was a new adventure and these folks here explained it best – so click to check their link – you can see most of the details there.

The difference with mine is that I used honey as a direct substitute for corn syrup and it worked perfectly.