white chocolate plastic

[nwells]

I am working on expanding my cake "look" decor and am going to do a cake wrapped in white chocolate plastic. I've read Flo Braker and Nick Malgeiri on the subject and feel well informed. What I didn't find anywhere is just how far in advance I can cover a cake and how it should be stored after covering. Is it the same as fondant (a couple of days at room temperature)? I'm not worried about the cake itself, but I have read reference to chocolate plastic hardening. I'm going to take this to a bridal shower on Sunday and would love a head start.

Also, I'm planning on tinting the plastic itself--nothing to know there, I assume.

I'm planning on a thin crumb coat for the cake. This stuff is really like fondant, but chocolate. Is that right?

[Wendy DeBord]

If you have advance time I think it would be eye opening if you did a small sample. It's not nearly as soft as fondant and it's much harder to roll thin and handle. Coating a regular soft cake might be a nightmare cutting into portions. Personally, I wouldn't coat a reg. cake with it, with-out mixing it with rolling fondant to make it softer.

Also you know that it drapes differently then rolled fondant and when you do your sides you have to fold them over vs. how you smooth down fondant.

Tinting chocolate requires non-water based colors.

Also I'd go with a med. weight crumb coat. If your too thin it won't adhear nicely on all the surfaces.

Storage, it will get condensation in the refridgerator just like fondant. But you can dab it dry with paper towels if it's not too wet. But the cooler it is the harder it will be. Storing at room temp. you can do that as earily as you want as long as your cake and crumb coat won't be affected/staling.

[nwells]

So, is the folding requirement the reason that Elegant Cheesecakes always wraps their cakes like gifts?

Thanks for those hints. Maybe I should use marzipan instead? I love the natural shade of marzipan, but I know the bride would love an aqua color. Can I dye marzipan? I guess I better experiment since it has that nutty shade to begin with.

[Wendy DeBord]

I honestly think Elegant Cheesecakes has to be mixing their choc. plastic with fondant. I LOVE her work and try to study it. I saw an tv article featuring her shop and the texture she had and the way she handled it, it was definatly not straight choc. plastic, no way! The wrapping/gift theme might have started when she began using chocolate plastic (it's a logical thought), but I'm certain she's past using straight choc. plastic to wrap cakes.

You don't want to mix the choc. plastic with fondant? It's pretty good and much easier to handle.

You could also mix marzipan with choc. plastic.......at least I can't think of why it wouldn't work. Yes, you can color marzipan (think about all those cute little fruit shapes they make).

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to detour your plans. I love working with choc. plastic, you can do amazing decorations out of it very quickly. I hope you'll try it on some part of your cake.

[nwells]

Great. I'm back on track. I will try it. My biggest worry after your first post was trying to serve it on a small cake. But, I guess people do it all the time (and I serve 6" fondant cakes on a regular basis). I'm going to do it and see if I can make it work. Will report back!

[chefette]

When tinting your modelling chocolate or chocolate plastic or marzipan for that matter keep in mind that it is naturally yellowish and doesn't always look so pretty with other colors since the yellow hue of the white chocolate influences the outcome. Many times you are forced to go to a much darker color than you might have wanted to.

As mentioned earlier you will be much happier if you play around with this ahead of time. Consider covering the cake in a more traditional covering such as plain buttercream or fondant and then wrap or decorate it with the modeling chocolate.

A pasta machine is a great way to roll out long strips but does limit the width.

[nwells]

I made the cake this weekend and discovered some interesting things:

I used Rosy Berenbaum's classic fondant recipe from the Cake Bible. I have used this recipe before, but not for almost two years. The fondant was extremely easy to make and came together better than I remember. I made the substitution for corn sryup and was very pleased with both the sheen of the fondant and the texture. I never enjoy the taste of fondant. The only thing I will do next time is double my recipe so that I have more flexibility when dying it (see problem below). When I was working the fondant the next morning I put it in my mocrowave for about 8 seconds at a few different points. That made it very easy to knead and seemed to renew the texture somehow.

I also made white chocolate plastic from Nick Malgeiri's book Perfect Bakes. This was just as easy to make, but not as great to knead. The night was very hot and the stickiness of the corn syrup really tried to come through. I didn't handle it too much and it was ok; I just had to wait until the next morning to really get in and knead it absolutely smooth.

So, the first night I was messing around with dying the fondant and I achieved the perfect light aqua that I was hoping for. That made me decide to skip the white chocolate addition so that I didn't alter the color. But, when I went to roll it out the next morning, I didn't have enough because I had used a significant amount to cut out appliques. I had to incorporate the chocolate plastic.

Alas, that meant that the whole thing turned a garish, deep aqua green (I read chefette's post as I returned home from the shower and laughed--you guys do know it all!). I had to work pretty hard to get back to the blue range that I needed. It was still way to deep and intense so I started adding in powdered sugar. I didn't know if this would work, but I knew that I wouldn't use green fondant so it was worth a try. I was able to knead in cups and cups of sugar. I thought that it would saturate and become too stiff or something, but it worked really well. I never got back to my ideal color, but I was happy presenting the end result.

One item that worked enormously well in two ways-- I have a roll pat (Sur la Table's house version). It is a silicon mat that is 19"x24". By using this mat I didn't have to use any nonstick spray and only enough additional powdered sugar for the rolling pin itself, even when I was rolling out the initial fondant recipe. I really can't say enough about how great this was. Then, I just picked up the whole mat, supported what was hanging off one edge, and turned it over onto the cake and peeled it off. Worked like a charm!

Anyway, thought some of this might help some others who don't have a ton of experience in this field either.

[nwells]

Here is a picture of my cake...

[Wendy DeBord]

It's charming, I bet everyone loved it.

[SweetDreams]

Here is a picture of my cake...

Well done! It's a darling cake.

Jan

Edited July 17, 2003 by SweetDreams (log)