I make them weekly because they are very popular with the homeless dinner, and as you might imagine, I don’t like to repeat designs. I love variety. These can be decorated in countless ways, some easier than others. In fact, I have tried a few things that quickly went into the “Never Again Folder”… For previous collections, click here and here. Without further ado, here are some of the designs I made in the past couple of months, starting with perhaps my very favorite!
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THE JAPANESE-MODERN
To make this design, all you need is some different colors of luster powder and a bit of vodka. Make a suspension and add small blotches on the surface of the mold. Let it dry for a few minutes and pour the melted compound chocolate. They will look good just with the colors, or you gild the lily with a small disc of chocolate decorated with a transfer sheet, in this case I used a cherry blossom pattern.
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The same exact method works with white chocolate… In this case I added some fondant sunflowers I had from last year’s cookie projects. I have quite a few ideas for color combinations in the near future, so stay tuned!
Luster powder can also be used to paint the surface of the chocolate after it sets, as I did for the set below… It does not go into the “Never Again Folder”, but it is a bit time-consuming.
Another great way to decorate is Royal icing… For the ones below I made straight lines in black and before they set I glued a little sprinkle heart in the crossed section. I love their minimalist look.
You can also pipe thicker lines of Royal icing coupled with a little sanding sugar… For added contrast, I dyed the white chocolate poured into the mold with fat-soluble sky blue dye. These were a good match for some macarons I made in that same week (see post here).
Even easier is just making a random drizzle with icing, fast and straightforward..
Sharing perhaps my second favorite of this set: Royal icing in circular piping plus a disc of chocolate decorated with transfer sheet, also saved from a project last year. The Royal icing was dyed with Americolor Gold. And once all was set, I sprayed some gold dust all over because.. why not?
Finally, the method that I don’t recommend and it truly drove me crazy: spread the Royal icing with a stencil. It was very very tricky to hold the stencil over the small surface, I had to scrape it all and start all over many times, as it would smear and end up quite messy. I managed to get three reasonably good ones, but as I said before…. never again!
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BEWARE: Making chocolate-covered Oreos can be addictive!
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