Any experience with Cake Girls chocolate molds?

[Douglas K]

I have a one-off project needing chocolate letters. I’m not really finding a lot that fits my needs, and I really don’t want to spend a lot for a one time deal. I’m also not a professional, and I’m doing the project for family. I did come across these Cake Girl letters that are about perfect in terms of size. I was wondering I anyone had experience with these, and if they made a decently finished product. 

[Kerry Beal]

53 minutes ago, Douglas K said:

I have a one-off project needing chocolate letters. I’m not really finding a lot that fits my needs, and I really don’t want to spend a lot for a one time deal. I’m also not a professional, and I’m doing the project for family. I did come across these Cake Girl letters that are about perfect in terms of size. I was wondering I anyone had experience with these, and if they made a decently finished product. 

They aren't heavy polycarbonate molds - but if all you need is to make some letters of a certain size - they should work just fine.

[Douglas K]

Thank you Kerry. All I’ve used are the heavy polycarbonate ones, well except for the one Tomric bar mold that is lighter weight. Here’s hoping this works, and it’s what my family member wants!

[Kerry Beal]

9 hours ago, Douglas K said:

Thank you Kerry. All I’ve used are the heavy polycarbonate ones, well except for the one Tomric bar mold that is lighter weight. Here’s hoping this works, and it’s what my family member wants!

This will be more like the tomric bar mold only a little more bendy. Do what you can to support them on a sheet pan, I'd probably pipe the tempered chocolate into them - then when they start to show signs of firming up on the edges - pop them in the fridge for 15 min or so until they have separated from the molds. You'll likely notice some de-molding marks because of the type of plastic. 

[Douglas K]

These are definitely like the Tomric molds, but more bendy as you say because there’s no rim around the mold to stiffen up the whole thing. The letters themselves don’t seem to flex too much. Piping the chocolate is definitely a good idea. We’ll see how it goes!

[Douglas K]

I wanted to do a follow-up just in case anyone is interested. I am currently in the middle of making 100 chocolate letters for my Nephew’s wedding. I did some tests earlier, and pouring these molds and scraping is a non-starter. First, there’s no good way to get a good scrape, and the tops of the letters are curved, so you end up with a little foot when you do. I’ve been piping these, and I’m not great at it since I’ll have a little trimming to do, but it’s going pretty well. It’s warm in our house as well, so the 15 minutes in the fridge, and then putting them in the 70 degree basement is working well. There are some mold marks, but it looks fine for something an amateur like me made. The chocolate is a 70% bittersweet chocolate ( Peru Maranon) that I made, and I’ve been tempering with tempered cocoa butter. I’ll post some photos later.

[Douglas K]

At last some photos. I did the lot in 7 batches. 93 letters, and all of them tempered perfectly. I packaged them carefully and carried them on the plane with me. Got them to their destination without incident thankfully. Was worried that TSA would think 9 lbs of chocolate letters would be a bomb or drug smuggling. The photos with 3 letters are my first test letters done with different chocolate, but give you an idea of the mold marks etc. The wedding party packaged them for distribution, and they did a fantastic job. They looked great in their clear bags, and they put a sticker on the back with a story about the Dutch tradition of getting chocolate letters at Christmas. It was a fun project, if not a lot of work, and it was great to be able to provide some very special chocolate for my nephew and his wife. The Peru Marañon tasted fantastic. It is perhaps my favorite dark chocolate so far.