Making Chocolate Tiles

[Jim D.]

I am making Rose Levy Beranbaum's La Brioche cake.  She calls for decorating the sides of the cake with chopped, toasted hazelnuts, which are fantastic.  But one of the guests doesn't like nuts (you can't pick your relatives, I guess), so I came up with the idea of making thin rectangular pieces of chocolate spread on a transfer sheet.  They will be placed against the butter cream frosting, each being approximately the width of the slices of the cake to be cut (so there is no need to cut through the chocolate when the cake is served).

 

I experimented today, using Ewald Notter's directions in his book (he refers to the pieces as plaques).  He says to use tempered chocolate, spread it on the transfer sheet, wait for it to set, then use an X-acto knife to cut it in pieces of the correct size.  I left everything in place and cut through the transfer sheet and the chocolate and did not have any shattering.  But after I removed the transfer sheet and tried to trim the pieces a bit, they shattered a lot.  And there was some curling of the chocolate as it dried, which is worrisome.

 

Any ideas on how to improve this process and guard against the curling and the shattering issues?  Thanks for any help.

[keychris]

the curling is easy to fix: wait for the chocolate to be set to touch, put a piece of parchment or guitar sheet on it, then place the whole lot between two flat sheet pans to set completely.

The trimming you could just try with a heated knife, so you're melting through instead of cutting through.

HTH

[Jim D.]

Very helpful ideas.  I'll give them a try.

 

Thanks.

[Kerry Beal]

I score when it just gets tacky - then place under a weight as keychris suggests.  After it sets the pieces snap apart.

[Jim D.]

Kerry, also helpful ideas.  How thick should I try to get the tiles?  I want to stand them up against the sides of the cake.  In other words, is thinner or thicker easier to deal with?

[Kerry Beal]

Not so thin they shatter - but not so thick they are clunky.

[pastrygirl]

Kerry, also helpful ideas.  How thick should I try to get the tiles?  I want to stand them up against the sides of the cake.  In other words, is thinner or thicker easier to deal with?

 

Not paper thin, but somewhere in the 1mm to 1/16th inch range

[Jim D.]

With many thanks to those who gave advice on this project, here is the result.  Not perfect, but I ran out of time before I could trim the tiles a little more (alas, the cake was not the same height all the way around).  Scoring the tiles before they had totally dried and then using a heated knife for further trimming worked beautifully.

 

Thanks again for the help.