How was this Ron Ben-Israel cake done?

[chefpeon]

Click for pic!

A client would like me to do a cake

similar to this, and I know how to do all of it except for those little chocolate branches

that are sticking out.

Actually I'm not even sure about the branches at all.

The main part of the trunk and the branches that are adhered to the sides of the cake are

dark modeling chocolate (I'm assuming). But maybe not.

If the branches that are sticking out are modeling chocolate, then they must be formed over

wire, no? Dark modeling chocolate would not stand up on its own like that.

I can't imagine those little branches being straight tempered chocolate either.....they're just so delicate and I could see major breakage happening.....especially since there is little sugarpaste

buds attached to the ends of them.

My best guess is dark modeling chocolate over wire.

Anyone have any other guesses?

Edited July 21, 2004 by chefpeon (log)

[chefette]

I think that the whole branch thing is just wire wrapped in tape - possibly brushed wuth chocolate. I downloaded the image and zoomed in and that is what it looks like. You could try doing it in wire wrapped with modelling choc or creating and shaping the branch and dipping that in chocolate or spraying it. But I think possibly the branches actually on the fondant may very well be piped or modelling chocolate - so if that is true the whole branch would have to be coated for integrity. I am interested in the crack/flaw on the lower left. That may be the key. maybe it is chocolate formed around wire.

I Love the cake - it is really pretty and very clean

Edited July 21, 2004 by chefette (log)

[chefette]

OK - I admit - I am intrigued. I am actually wondering if the whole trunk (which is in contact with the surface of the cake) is chocolate (tempered or moddeling brushed or sprayed with tempered) then he stuck the branchlets (wire coated or painted with chocolate) onto the trunk.

[fiftydollars]

I think I see floral tape near the base of some of the flowers...

[Tepee]

I don't know about the wires, Annie, but Ron Ben has a reputation of doing all his deco edible...so no wires.

How about chocolate-colored gumpaste/pastillage?

[chefpeon]

How about chocolate-colored gumpaste/pastillage?

I was thinking about that.....but I've had trouble in the past when I've made gumpaste items

to add as attachments to a cake. They work fine at first, but as moisture from the cake (and

sometimes the walk-in) get to them, they start to soften and "wilt".

I remember once I had made a bunch of spiral type things out of gumpaste that I had intended to stick into the top of the cake for sort of an exploding whimsical look. I let them dry for two weeks....they were good and hard. Stuck em in the cake....then when I went to deliver it the next day, all my spiral things were lying flat. LUCKILY, I had made a LOT of spiral things in anticipation

of breakage, so I just took the softened ones off, and stuck the extra ones in the cake once I delivered it. Whew. I made a mental note to myself that if I did that again, I would mount them on wires and just stick the wires in the cake.

Also, the little description of the cake in the picture says the blossoms are made from sugarpaste and the branches are chocolate. So I was assuming the little stuck-out branches were chocolate too. The more I think about it, the more I think that dipping floral-taped wires in tempered chocolate is the best way to go. I'm all for totally edible and delicate.....but it's gotta survive transportation.......with wedding cakes, that's half the battle!

[Wendy DeBord]

I think it's most likely wire under chocolate. There isn't anything completely edible I can think of that would support those buds on the ends.

As for everything being edible..........Ron must use wires with his gum paste flowers like everyone else..............these fall into the same catagory:flowers.........so I think wires were used.

[Steve Klc]

The more I think about it, the more I think that dipping floral-taped wires in tempered chocolate is the best way to go

I think if you try this, you'll find that brushing/painting the wires with tempered chocolate will work out cleaner than dipping, especially if you're going to wire them together afterward. Chocolate adheres to brown floristry tape very well. It's cleaner to compose and bend your wired branch or spray, then paint. I first did this technique--applying some sugarcraft methodology to chocolate--in this case wires--on an anniversary cake for the Smithsonian in 1996 that had all tempered chocolate decoration otherwise, and was lucky a picture of it ended up in Smithsonian magazine in 1997--my first national exposure:

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian/...7/cake_jpg.html

I needed some lift, some lightness, away from the main flowers since much of what I did (looking back now) was heavy and since it was a literal cake I had to use wire to extend little modelling chocolate buds and blossoms. (If it had thought more figuratively then, I could have just used tempered chocolate wisps.) In this example you could use modelling chocolate to fatten out the branch at the base, stick the wires into the modelling chocolate, glue that along the side of the cake with tempered chocolate, vein it to create some ridges and then brush the modelling chocolate portion with tempered chocolate so it matches the taped/wired portions. And I think it always comes down to skill and experience to decide how and when you apply your decor to a cake--every situation is going to be different--heat, travel, set-up time, cost.

Wendy--I think you'll increasingly find more people designing cakes for decor without wires, I know we have been for a while. It's harder and more time consuming to do wired flowers well. Ron makes his rose without wires--the petals are formed on those little plastic spoons and then glued in place rather than each petal being on a wire and then all those wires wrapped up. Too many wedding cakes look too similar--making wired flowers and sprays the same way, without much life and vibrancy, are part of the reason why. In this case I think Ron's cake had a lot of life and was beautiful, it doesn't bother me at all that he likely used a few wires to support his decor. (He may say all his decor is edible but that's probably just for marketing purposes--yes he tends to style his cakes with flowers adhered close to or on the cake surface but if you visit his super website you can see wired sprays and buds on mostly all of his cake designs.) He does it delicately and well, and I think from this picture it's pretty easy to tell the buds and twig ends that are wired (thinner, more curvy, more delicate, lighter brown) versus the stems and branches that are likely piped chocolate (darker, thicker, sweating slightly, pressed against the cake.) You also can achieve the same flower thinness and shading with modelling chocolate as he did in gum paste.

[Tracy K.]

Ron makes his rose without wires--the petals are formed on those little plastic spoons and then glued in place rather than each petal being on a wire and then all those wires wrapped up.

I have never heard of this--individual rose petals on wires. I think it's a very bizarre way to make a rose...a real assembly line type of thing, I suppose. The only way to make a rose petal on a wire would be if it were thick. There are lots of people who like a "fake" look to the sugarcraft...this must be how they do it. I'm very anal with my roses...each petal is veined, very thin, applied according to the Fibonacci sequence...and no, I don't do this professionally any more...

My only comment on dipping the floral-tape-wrapped "stem" wire into chocolate would be that they wouldn't look realistic. Cherry blossom stems are delicate and woody--which is the effect you'd get with tape and brushing with cocoa.

(Edited to add link)

Edited July 22, 2004 by Tracy K. (log)

[bkeith]

Ditto what Steve said. Modeling chocolate directly on the cake, gp flowers on wires stuck into the modeling chocolate branch, brush everything with tempered chocolate to make it match.

That's exactly what I was thinking as I read through the thread, but he got to it first (and said it much more eloquently than I could).

[bkeith]

I have never heard of this--individual rose petals on wires.  I think it's a very bizarre way to make a rose...a real assembly line type of thing, I suppose.  The only way to make a rose petal on a wire would be if it were thick.  There are lots of people who like a "fake" look to the sugarcraft...this must be how they do it.

Actually, you'd be surprised. You can actually roll the gum paste quite thin and still wire it. The trick is to use a very thin wire, coat the end of it with a very thin layer of gum paste - about the length of the petal, lay it into a double-sided veiner, lay the petal on top, followed by the other half of the veiner, and press. This both veins the petals and attaches the wire without having to insert it the traditional way.

There's a school of folks who follow this practice religously, wiring each and every petal of every flower (try making a Gerbera daisy with 50+ petals!). It's called the "soft method" or the "Franklin method". Here's a site with some examples of flowers done that way.

I use and teach a modified version of that method. Some flowers I'll wire each petal. Some I'll use a combination of traditional method and soft method. For a blown-open rose, I'll build it traditionally for the first several rows of petals, but wire the outer row so that they have some extra support as they don't have much to hold on with otherwise.

In addition to making the petals stronger all the way to the tip (no more petals broken in half just at the end of the wire), the support lent by the wire lets you assemble your flowers while the gum paste is still damp and pliable, making for a better fit. And making the whole process a little quicker. I don't miss the days when I had to let trays of petals dry overnight on whatever I could come up with as formers.

Edited to add:

P.S. Thanks for the Fibonacci reference. I'm a math geek from way back and have been telling folks for years about Fibonacci and flowers. Mostly I got a lot of weird looks. Since The DaVinci Code, however, people seem more willing to believe me.

Edited July 22, 2004 by bkeith (log)

[Steve Klc]

Tracy--when the outer layers of rose petals are on wires you can really get that delicate curled up, dying, drying, peeling away effect--if done well it's amazing and you don't see any wire. Rather than an "assembly line thing" I think it just might be the most skilled and most difficult way to do a rose--which is why you don't see it that often. It's also really the best way to have a rose in a spray or roses of different ages which extend out from or wrap around a cake because it affords a lot of flexibility. The assembly line might be more aptly applied to the way Ron has developed--half sheets and half sheets of rows of spoon "cups" each cradling a petal--which he can then let dry and color and assemble or only partially dry and pick up when still a little soft to apply. His roses really are beautiful and full, though, regardless of how efficient a system he's developed. The wired way can be as thin or thinner than most roses done without wires. I think what this speaks to is that there are so many different ways to do creative things. Richard Ruskell did his roses this wired way at that recent Beaver Creek wedding cake event and they were stunning (he came in a close second.)

I think, too, that there is a fine line between a fake look and just poor work.

[nicolekaplan]

i can only add that i have disassembled and served many of his cakes, and the flowers have always been on wires or wooden picks, also i have taken a class or two with him and he loves his airbrush so i would guess that had something to do with the finish, or maybe a paint sprayer

[Tracy K.]

Like I said at some point along the line, I learned from Scott Woolley, who doesn't like anything inedible anywhere near his cakes. I can understand the use of a wire to get a really blown look, and that way any wire sightings would be obscured by the rest of the flower.

I'll have to check out Richard's work...I'm not sure how subtle you can be with an airbrush, but I haven't used one and am only used to seeing the disgusting airbrushing on bakery cakes that go for $2 a slice. (Ah, the blue rose....)

[bripastryguy]

Tracey,

Scott is great, very meta physical. His classes are great and very relaxing. His book is awesome, I really wanted the CD as I dont get much time to practice

[joshalow]

There's an incredible British Sugar Artist who has written 5-6 books on gumpaste flowers, Alan Dunn, and he also teaches the method of wiring alot of the petals of a flower. I took a class with him and one of the flowers we made was a Passion Flower. Wow! the number of wires we had to use for that flower- every petal and every filament was on a wire- but we used 33 gauge for a lot of it. His, Alan Dunn's roses are just incredibly realistic, and the outer row of petals are on wires. As for Ron's cake, I have to agree with bkeith and Steve with the method of doing the chocolate branch. As to whether he uses wires, he shared at a recent on-line chat that he sticks his wired flowers into coffee stirers and then sticks those into the cake, so the wires are not in the cake.

[Drewman]

I had to make this cake once and the way I did it was by putting white chocolate couverture in the robot coupe until it became a paste like modelling chocolate. If you haven't done this before, it works the same way as modelling chocolate, but sets up as firm as couverture. I formed the branches around cake pans that were the same size as the finished cake and sprayed them with dark chocolate. After the branches were firm and dry, I put them on the actual cake and glued the gumpaste flowers in place with a small drop of tempered couverture. Doing it this way really wasn't difficult. Good luck!

[Wendy DeBord]

Very interesting Drewman (welcome).........can you elaborate more? How did you support your branches to dry/cool while they were around the cake pans?

[Drewman]

You don't have to support them, the couverture will set up as hard as it was before you put it in the robot coupe in a very short period of time. Use the warmth of your hands to manipulate it into the shape you want and in a few seconds, it's set.

[Steve Klc]

That white chocolate pistole-pulsing in the Cuisinart technique was first explained in this book:

http://www.jbprince.com/index.asp?PageActi...PROD&ProdID=891

the Betrand & Marand "Chocolate Behind the Scenes" book. If you follow the link, that's how they did the tusk on the cover--it works best for larger sculptural forms. (This book is still the best book out there for improving your chocolate showpiece skills.) Wendy--this technique works basically because you never bring the white chocolate out of temper--the heat of the whirring blade warms the chocolate up slightly so you can model it, roll it, pack it, etc but never takes it above the temperature (86-88 or so) that white chocolate would come out of temper. (I don't actually take it quite as far as modelling chocolate consistency--I use it still fairly firm so it sets quicker and doesn't stick at all--but that's personal preference. We use the "bourbon chocolate" technique when we need something really soft--like if you're building up a more intricate form to sculpt/carve down later.)

[chefpeon]

Ok, so if you put white chocolate couverture in the Robot Coupe and whir it around....it softens the chocolate and makes it pliable without bringing it out of temper.....got it. So I guess my question is, why did you do it with white chocolate and then spray it with dark? Could you whir around dark chocolate couverture in the Robot Coupe too? Or does that not work?

And does it have to be couverture, or will any kind of chocolate work?

[Drewman]

I think that it has to be couverture and I used white chocolate because it's easier to work with and more pliable than dark chocolate. Milk chocolate works, but is more difficult to work with and the only way to get dark couverture to work is to use a 50% chocolate (semi-sweet). Dark chocolate is difficult to get to the right consistancy and besides the white chocolate under the dark chocolate spray adds some depth and realism to the branches. Just put 1 cup of white chocolate in your robot coupe and check it out.

[Wendy DeBord]

We use the "bourbon chocolate" technique when we need something really soft--like if you're building up a more intricate form to sculpt/carve down later.)

Cool, good to know.

I've noticed that book Steve, but I don't own it. So what's the bourbon chocolate technique consist of?

[Steve Klc]

You mean Colleen and I haven't already discussed that on eG in a previous thread? (Add bourbon to melted, tempered chocolate turning in a Kitchenaid bowl with the paddle until you've added the just the right amount--then turn it out, form, let it get hard, then sculpt away. It changes the structure of the chocolate and allows you to grab onto it better without melting as readily as pure tempered chocolate would. It also allows you to build up a form more quickly than trying to set tempered chocolate in layers would.)