Decorating with chocolate

[JacqueOH]

I recently tried decorating sugar cookies with white chocolate for the first time, after seeing Chefpeon mention that's how she did them. I loved how much easier it was to dip the cookies in melted chocolate for the "base coat" (thanks, Anne!), but I struggled when it came time to pipe on the details. I had problems with the chocolate setting up in my piping bag as I was decorating. And it seemed the chocolate that had a lot of food coloring in it was particularly prone to setting up. I used both powdered colors and liquid candy colors. I also added some Crisco or paramount crystals to my chocolate to help make it more fluid.

I should note that it was actually white candy coating, rather than real chocolate. I used Guittard white ribbons that I got from the local cake decorating supply store.

What I tried was to have two decorating bags going... one warming on my electric griddle, set on low heat, while I used the other. When the one I was using started getting hard, I would switch to the one that was warming. My griddle is old, and will only stay on above 150 degrees.

For any of you that pipe/decorate with chocolate, do you have any helpful hints or tips? Does real chocolate work better than the candy coating? Is there a particular amount of Crisco that should be added to the candy coating? What temperature is ideal for warming chocoalte?

I had 50 cookies to decorate recently and I was ready to tear my hair out toward the end as my chocolate got increasingly difficult to work with.

Thanks in advance! I haven't posted much, but I learn something new from this board every day.

[bkeith]

I find a heating pad works better than a griddle for keeping chocolate pipeable, especially when summer coating is involved. Just set the heating pad on warm, fold it over, and stash your bag in the fold. Keeps the chocolate nice and melty.

Also, were you using a tip in your bag? Chocolate hardens up really fast in metal tips. I use a small parchment bag and just cut an opening, and it works fine.

[K8memphis]

Hi Jacque!!!!

Greater minds than mine will answer here for sure, but this is what I do.

I use smaller parchment bags to pipe with so that I can enclose the chocolate in my hand and the warmth will help 'keep things moving'--not entirely of course but a little-opposite of how you would pipe buttercream where you don't want to warm it up. So yes I guess I am snuggling with the chocolate.

There are no tips used in the bags though, I just cut the tip off. When I am switching one bag to the other, I flatten the tip of the bag closed and fold the last little bit up. I fold it once if I am coming back to use it -I fold it more times if I am finished and want to store the choco in the bag so it all gets pushed up into more of a nice blob and I can just cut it out if I need more like to repair something or whatever. The paper of course makes it possible to just unfold the tip, press the crease back open and with the movement of the choco back through the tip, order is restored in the court and it comes out fine.

You can also prime the pump there too when you are using a parchment bag like this without a tip/tube & just the parchment tip of the bag cut off. Crease the very end of the bag and fold it up--hold the fold there in the end of the bag closed with your fingertips and squeeze the bag so the choco flows toward your fingertips as if you were piping. Then take your fingers and slide the choco from the tip back wards, repeat the process--that will help too.

I use a saucer on top of a pot of hot water to rest my bags on--making sure the tip comes in contact with the hot plate by propping the back of the bag up on the edge of the saucer. I either keep another pan of water going on the stove so I can switch out the pans or I keep the pan on the stove so I can re-heat easily as needed to maintain temperature. I err on the side of it's gotten a little too loose and runny because it is so easy to get it to cool off--easier to get it to cool off than warm up--but warming it back up is easy too with the microwave--or set it back on the saucer--I also use a plastic covered heating pad to hold chocolate where I want it. Again with the folded tip making contact with the heat.

Unless I was piping something big and fast I would use smaller bags full so the heat of the hand keeps things going--you just have to be making more bags--I use the parchment and cut them in half and sometimes in half again to get the right size. Some people use the clear plastic disposable bags, but they blow out the sides for me creating giant tumor like blobules--ha! I will put pictures of some of this stuff in the tuxedo strawberry part of the demo cake blog.

Hey, how are yah???

Y'know what though about chocolate??? You have to get on it's bandwagon, it waits for no man (ha). All of the temperatures play a part, the temperature of your hand, the room, the surface you are piping on, the heat of whatever you are holding it on, humidity--I'm sure there's a perfect temp to hold it at but the real issue is knowing the chocolate and how it works against whatever variables exist that day.

In other words, playing with it on a day when you have time for it will mean much more than knowing the perfect temp is xyz degrees or whatever. The chocolate will tell you what's the right and wrong temperature, just listen/watch. It's a fat--you let it soften and harden like a pendulum swinging back & forth and capture/document those conditions so you can remember and be there the next time the chocolate goes where you want it to be. Whether you want it to be crisp and set up nice or flow easy or flow everywhere.

And I used a boatload of oil, really a ridiculous amount of oil to make my red loosen up enough to coat properly--it worked though.

I want to be as cool as Nightscotsman's & Jean Philippe Maury Patisserie's rice krispie treats when I grow up. Oops, sorry the picture will not re-size--but Happy Fourth Of July anyway!!!

Edited June 15, 2005 by K8memphis (log)

[chefpeon]

Um, yeah, everything everybody else said......plus....

I use only one color at a time.

Say I have a tray of cookies.....already dipped. Ready to decorate.

The details will have three colors on them.....let's say, red, yellow and blue.

I melt my blue, fill up a parchment bag, cut off the tip (I don't use metal tips for piping chocolate either), and pipe all my blue details on each cookie. The warmth of my hand has always kept the piping cone warm enough so that the chocolate never sets up on me.

You're not using a giganto cone, are you?

Then I'll melt my yellow.....do all the yellow details.......and so forth.

I use Guittard White Satin Ribbon a lot. It DOES set fast. I add a good amount of oil or paramount crystals to get it fluid enough.....but you don't want it TOO fluid, otherwise it sort of comes out of the bag uncontrollably when you go to pipe it.

Actually, my favorite white chocolate for cookie decorating purposes is Felchlin White Chocolate Rondo. It sets well, and I don't have to add any oil or anything to it to make it fluid enough. It's great as-is. I get it from my supplier, who, out here in the Puget Sound area is Peterson's.

[JacqueOH]

Thank you all SO much! I was using a metal tip, with a coupler, and probably too much coating in the bag, sooooooo, lots of room for improvement there.

BKeith - excellent idea about nestling the bags in a folded over heating pad. Now I gotta go try to find mine!

Anne, thank you, I will definitely try to find some of the Felchlin. I'm anxious to see what "real" chocolate acts like. Do you mind me asking, while I'm on the subject of decorating cookies with chocolate... after you dip your cookies, what method do you use to smooth the surface? I was having so-so results smoothing with a spatula. I was able to get a nice smooth surface after I set my cookie on a paper towel and then held the sides of the paper towel and gently (or sometimes not so gently) tapped the cookie repeatedly on the table until the coating smoothed out. BUT, it wasn't a method I pictured a pastry chef using.

Kate, yes, chocolate is a different animal altogether, but worth getting to know, I think. I'm embarrassed to admit that it wasn't that long ago I thought "white chocolate" chips were actually chocolate! It's like a whole new world is opening here. Oh, and your rice crispie treats are awesome! WAY fancier than any my kitchen has ever seen

edited for late night typo. errors

Edited June 16, 2005 by JacqueOH (log)

[chefpeon]

after you dip your cookies, what method do you use to smooth the surface?

Hmmmmmmm.....the fact that you asked that question leads me to believe that maybe your dipping chocolate wasn't thin enough. When I dip cookies, all I do is hold them by the edges, dip the top surface in the chocolate, then let the excess chocolate run off (I might give it a little shake or two), and place it on a parchment lined sheet pan. After the cookies are set up, I lift them off the parchment, and run my hand around the edges to smooth off the "feet" if there are any. Then I proceed to decorate.

I've never had to use a spatula or anything to smooth the surface.....too much work!

[PassionateChefsDie]

Think all's been mentioned here I'm with everyone else on the parchment bag, I found that as I'm not very good at this(And have lousy hand writing!) when I did need to do this, I covered my marble slab in try outs before eventually moving to the proper one(If I couldn't find anyone else to do it).

My only advice is to remember to go with the flow, if I fought it, the writing was blobby and not crisp, I found it was a lot easier if I just got on with it, letting the chocolate almost flow not really squeezing. And stopping is hard, far easier to keep it running either running of the edge or doing joined up.

I've only done this with Valhrona and found tempering was just as important, many a time if I had missed this slightly, the tip would clog and need clearing.

[JacqueOH]

Thank you both! Anne, yes it does sound like I didn't have my dipping chocolate thin enough. I am so glad I asked and thanks for sharing.

Passionate... I hear you on just letting it flow and the challenge of stopping. Ummmm, tempering? Yikes! I've read a few threads on tempering and it sounds a bit daunting. Not sure I'm ready for that. Is it necessary to temper for cookies? What if you don't? are the results passable?

[PassionateChefsDie]

Thank you both!  Anne, yes it does sound like I didn't have my dipping chocolate thin enough.  I am so glad I asked and thanks for sharing.

Passionate... I hear you on just letting it flow and the challenge of stopping.  Ummmm, tempering?  Yikes! I've read a few threads on tempering and it sounds a bit daunting.  Not sure I'm ready for that.  Is it necessary to temper for cookies?  What if you don't? are the results passable?

←

Off course you'll get passable results! It may not be as crisp or shiny as proper tempered chocolate, but as mentioned I've only really done this with quality couverture!

This really only counts, when your using quality chocolate, the aim is to get an amalgamation of all the fats can't remember how many but it's a fair few all melting and setting at different temps!

The easiest thing I can say is that on melted chocolate there's what looks like an oil puddle, when this has gone you know you've got it cracked. It took me months before I got it cracked with pure Valrhona(Though it's easier if you mix it with callebaut) this seems to be one of the hardest to temper.

But what your doing is melting the highest temperature fat and then mixing until it's amalgamated with the lowest. If your using any form of real chocolate for dipping I would start trying, not whole hearted but just stirring and geting use to the feel of proper tempered chocolate it slightly thickens as well as losing the oil puddle sheen.

You see many methods of adding unmelted to melted, this is a good way to start but you can get just as good results by stirring it down to the cooler temperature without adding any additional, it's more a feel thing when you've done it enough times. Just dont heat it to hot when it cools to far for dipping you'll undo your good work.

Edit to add

As for tempering temps not sure but think it's 50'c for Dark, 45'c for Milk and 40'c for white. Its been a while since I looked at bar of couverture(I hate pastry, to many petit fours and chocolates for my liking), it's normally on the side.

Edited June 17, 2005 by PassionateChefsDie (log)

[chefpeon]

Ummmm, tempering? Yikes! I've read a few threads on tempering and it sounds a bit daunting. Not sure I'm ready for that. Is it necessary to temper for cookies?

Yikes.....if I had to temper my chocolate for cookies, I'd never get them done. I've never tempered chocolate for cookies and I'm not about to start! I really really wouldn't worry about that.

Basically, the chocolate I use to dip cookies is a bit thinner than the chocolate I use to pipe the decorations. If I used the same chocolate to pipe with as I did to dip with, then the chocolate would flow out of the bag too fast.

[Fivesecondrule]

If you are just writing or drawing on the cookies with chocolate, use at least 50 percent coating chocolate and it will still have a shine without tempering. I always use just a plain parchment triangle without a metal tip, and when the chocolate starts to set, just throw it in the microwave for 10 seconds. It will soften right up. I have tried to microwave an old bag that was totally set, and it did catch on fire though.