Chocolate Rattlesnake Dragon

This was made as a Christmas present for my sister and her husband. The body is made of forty-seven chocolate cups with eleven different fillings, arranged randomly, so biting into each segment is an adventure, since there's no way of knowing what flavor it will be. Maybe there's some sort of gambling to be done here. Someone call Vegas. Speaking of which, I have a great idea for a restaurant in Vegas in which, for a fixed price, you get a pull on a slot machine to determine what you're going to get for dinner. The first reel could be the drink, then the appetizer, the side dish, the main course, and dessert. You might end up with lobster; you might end up with a BLT. Wouldn't that be fun?

Getting back to the dragon, the eleven filling flavors were golden sesame, ginger, citrus zest, green tea, red wine, wasabi, peanut butter, peppermint, coffee, orange, and cherry.

Why a dragon, you ask? Well, I reply, because that's what occurred to me. I had another idea first, involving a demonic Santa Claus playing God, holding up a DNA strand covered with the screaming heads of tormented elves, but I didn't think I'd have the time to do it right. It's too bad, because that would have been more Christmas themed. Maybe next year.

Initially, I was planning to make the body out of candies made in several sizes of peanut butter cup molds. This fell through because the peanut butter cup molds I ordered over the internet didn't arrive at my apartment in New York until after I left to spend Christmas at my sister's house in California. I therefore had to run around to candy supply stores looking for usable molds. What I found (at Michael's) were molds for those little chocolate cups that you're supposed to fill with mousse or raspberries. It was actually a blessing in disguise, as these worked better than the peanut butter cup molds ever would have. They're big enough to fit a good amount of filling and they're proportioned really well for snake segments. Peanut butter cup molds would have resulted in much squatter, less graceful snake. Of course, I now have a bunch of peanut butter cup molds and nothing to do with them.

The first step was to make all the fillings, except peanut butter, which comes ready made in a convenient jar. I recommend using some kind of natural peanut butter. I used Trader Joe's.

The peppermint, coffee, orange and cherry centers were made of center fondant, which I've made many times before. My recipe comes from The Practical Candymaking Cookbook, which I highly recommend, though I believe it is now out of print. The fondant is basically sugar, milk, and butter, cooked, then worked on a marble slab to get the right texture. I then flavored it with candy oils (except for the coffee, for which I used instant coffee as flavoring) and colored it with paste food colors.

The golden sesame, ginger, red wine, wasabi, citrus zest, and green tea were much more of an adventure, because instead of a recipe, all I had was a brochure from a high end New York candy store, which I got at the New York Chocolate Show. It had descriptions of the candies, but it wasn't like a real recipe. For instance, all the instruction I had for the ginger candy was, "Milk chocolate blended with gin-flavored ganache and ginger."

The golden sesame and ginger have a milk chocolate ganache base, which is made by boiling cream, pouring it over chopped milk chocolate, and whisking them together. For the golden sesame I added finely ground golden sesame seeds and a splash of brandy and for the ginger, finely chopped ginger root and a little gin. I determined the proportions by taste and then wasn't smart enough to write them down, so I won't know any more the next time I make them than I did this time.

The red wine and wasabi start with a dark chocolate ganache base, made the same way as the ganache with milk chocolate. I then added red wine and wasabi powder (because I couldn't find fresh wasabi root) to taste. Finally, the citrus zest and green tea are based on white chocolate ganache, flavored with orange zest (from my sister's own orange tree) and gin and with ground up green tea.

They all wound up tasting very good. I was particularly pleased with the ginger, red wine, and citrus zest. The only major problem I had was that the white chocolate-based flavors and, to a lesser extent, the milk chocolate-based flavors, were more liquid than is ideal for rolling truffle centers. This actually was no problem at all for this project, as I could just pour the liquid into the mold, but I was also using these ganaches to make rolled truffle centers, both for standard truffles and for the shrunken head truffles that I made Mom and Dad for Christmas. I think I could solve this problem next time by using less cream to make the initial ganache out of milk chocolate and white chocolate. See, I did learn something by making these, even if I didn't have the sense to write down my recipes.

With the fillings done, I was ready to make the chocolate cups themselves.The first step was to fill the mold with dark chocolate, and then set it in the fridge for one minute, so a thin, hard shell formed. Then I poured out the excess chocolate and set the molds back in the fridge to harden.

Once the chocolate shells had solidified, it was a simple matter to pour the fillings in and then pour another thin layer of chocolate on to seal off the top of the cup. Shaking the mold a bit helps to settle the chocolate on top into a flat surface. Then, back in the fridge they went to harden.

Now the fun part begins! It was time to begin adding the artistic details. For this, I found it best to use melted dark chocolate mixed with just a smidge of corn syrup. This gives the chocolate just a little more solidity so it holds its shape better. It also imparts to the chocolate a lovely dark sheen. The only drawback is that too much corn syrup will cause the whole batch of chocolate to seize up and become totally useless. I'll only admit to that happing to me twice

.I put a batch of this dark chocolate / corn syrup combo into a pastry bag with a #4 round tip and piped little dots of chocolate around the top and bottom of each cup. These made a nice visual division between the segments of the snake and also kept the cups from touching each other except around the perimeter, making it possible to break off a cup to eat without extensive damage to the neighboring cup.

Once those dots were dry (Another advantage to the corn syrup addition is that it makes the chocolate set up much more quickly.) I joined forty-six of the cups into twenty-three pairs, by sticking the wide ends of the two cups together. The remaining single cup was for the back of the head.

I was finally ready to arrange the snake on the gold foil covered cardboard cake circle I had designated as the snake's home. I chose to arrange the snake in a spiral, with the tail to be placed on the outside of the spiral and the head rising up from the center. This part went quickly, as it was a simple matter to stick the segments to each other and to the base with a little chocolate. I had to prop the head up on a few containers of luster dust until the chocolate that was holding it in place dried.

Next, the hard parts - the face and the tail. Actually, the tail wasn't all that hard. I made all of components of the head and tail on a piece of parchment paper, and then stuck them to the snake with a little more chocolate / corn syrup. The tail consisted simply of a series of rings of decreasing size. I believe I piped them with a #6 round tip. Once these dried, I stuck them together to form the rattle, and then stuck the whole thing onto the last segment of the body.

The head was more complicated. The basis was the same as the tail - a series of consecutively smaller rings, though these shrank in diameter more rapidly than those that formed the tail, resulting in a squat, roundhead. The holes in the center of the rings formed a mouth. I also made many whiskers of various sizes and shapes - some s-shapes, some curlicues, some simple swooshes.

Once all the components dried, I was ready to decorate the head. I started with the larger whiskers and worked my way down to the smaller details, basically making it up as I went. I was very happy with the result. While I was at it, I also reinforced many of the connections between the segments to make sure nothing came apart.

I applied the finishing touches with white chocolate - teeth, eyeballs, accents on the tips of the hair and beard, and little spikes on the rattle.

Once it was wrapped I was a little nervous about the head collapsing, but there was nothing I could do at that point (except unwrap it to double check, then rewrap it, which I only did once) but I was worried for nothing. In fact, it was quite sturdy. Unfortunately, my sister and her husband were leaving for Hawaii in two days, so they couldn't eat the dragon right away. We stuck him in fridge to await their return.

Little Head Truffles

These candies were made as a Christmas present for Mom and Dad. The original idea was to see whether the facial expression had a noticeable impact on the eater's enjoyment of the candy. Is it more pleasant to eat a happy face or an angry face? Does an excited face taste better than a sad face? In other words, does the emotion evinced by the candy translate into an equivalent emotion felt by the consumer? I still think this is an interesting idea to explore, but I don't think this project furthered my research much, mostly because creating a specific, distinct expression on each face turned out to be much more difficult than I had imagined it would be. I basically wound up just going with whatever face emerged of its own volition. One of the truffles wound up looking like a clueless vampire.

My plan was to make two truffle heads of each of six flavors - two based on dark chocolate (red wine and wasabi), two based on milk chocolate (ginger and golden sesame), and two based on white chocolate (citrus zest and green tea). I got these flavors from a brochure for an upscale New York chocolate shop, which I got at the New York Chocolate Show. I didn't really have recipes, just descriptions, so I had to guess at all the proportions. For instance, all the instruction I had for the ginger candy was, "Milk chocolate blended with gin-flavored ganache and ginger."

All the truffles start with a ganache base, which is basically just chocolate (dark, milk, or white) mixed with hot cream and whisked until smooth. To these ganaches I added red wine, wasabi powder (I couldn't find any fresh wasabi root.), finely chopped ginger root with a little bit of gin, ground golden sesame seeds and a splash of brandy, orange zest (from an orange from my sister's own orange tree) and gin, or finely ground green tea.

They all wound up tasting very good, particularly the red wine, ginger, and citrus zest. I did, however, have a problem with the consistency of the white chocolate-based flavors and, to a lesser extent, the milk chocolate-based flavors. They were much thinner than the ideal for rolling truffle centers. I think I could solve this problem next time by using less cream.

The white chocolate-based flavors were so thin that I couldn't make them into hand-rolled truffles and would up using some nice molds I had lying around. I poured melted white chocolate into the mold, then set it in the fridge for one minute so the outer edge would set a bit. I then poured out the excess chocolate and set the mold back in the fridge to set. After a few hours the white chocolate shells were hard enough to pour in the citrus zest and green tea fillings. I then piped a layer of white chocolate on top of the filling with a #6 tip to seal off the tops. I put them back in the fridge and, once the white chocolate was set, those candies were done.

The milk chocolate-based and the dark chocolate-based ganaches were thick enough that I could roll them into centers, about 3/4" in diameter. I dipped these into tempered chocolate, corresponding to the chocolate used for the ganache centers. I then chose the nicest, roundest ones to draw faces onto.

At first I tried piping features on with straight chocolate. This proved problematic because the chocolate was too thin, making it difficult to create any detail. So I tried an experiment. Modeling chocolate is a putty-like compound made by mixing chocolate with corn syrup. It can be sculpted like clay or rolled out like dough. I thought that if I added just a smidge of corn syrup to my chocolate, I could make something in between modeling chocolate and regular chocolate, which would be thin enough that I could still pipe it with a pastry bag, but thick enough that it would hold its shape. The results of the experiment were as good as I could have hoped for! The chocolate / corn syrup combo not only held its shape better than the regular chocolate, it also set up faster and had a lovely sheen to it. The only drawback is that this can only be done in small batches because eventually it will harden inside the pastry bag and become unusable. There's also a danger of adding too much corn syrup to the chocolate, which results in the whole batch seizing up into a useless lump.

With my new discovery in hand, I piped facial features onto two of each dark chocolate flavor and two of each milk chocolate flavor. Naturally, I used milk chocolate for the milk chocolate truffles and dark chocolate for the dark chocolate truffles. At this point I did try to shoot for specific facial expressions, but to a large extent the chocolate simply did what it would. I think I could do better in controlling the chocolate with a little more practice.

With the major facial shapes done, I added hair, facial hair, and eyebrows using dark chocolate on the milk chocolate truffles and milk chocolate on the dark chocolate truffles. I then used white chocolate for details like eyes and teeth. It was at this point that one of them emerged as a vampire because the perimeter teeth came out longer than center teeth.

For some reason, one and only one of them developed blooms, a surface discoloration to which poorly tempered chocolate is prone, so he appeared to have some sort of skin condition on his forehead.

Zombie Cake

I made this cake version of our logo for a gala party we threw to celebrate our 100th review on theyrecoming.com.

The highlight of the party, if I do say so myself, was my zombie cake, which we named Orville, after the dead guy in Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things, though it looked nothing like him. In effect, it was a three-dimensional version of our logo, a zombie rising up out of the grave, or, in this case, rising up out of a field of my homemade French cream candies. The head was made of sour cream chocolate chip cake, dyed red to resemble brain matter, covered with modeling chocolate and various other frosting and hard candy details. The hand was made of mint-flavored hard candy bones covered with chocolate. Green hard candy letters around the perimeter reminded everyone that "They're coming to get you, Barbara." At the height of the party we gathered everyone around it to witness the thrilling moment when raspberry flavored blood spurted from his eyes and poured from his mouth. In fact, it sprayed a bit further than I expected it to. Fortunately only my sister and I were hit.

I calculated that, between the cake, the French creams, and the bloody eyeball cordial cherries, I went through 15 pounds of granulated sugar, 2 bags of powdered sugar, 8 large bags of chocolate chips, 2 bottle of corn syrup, 8 pounds of dark chocolate, and 4 pounds of white chocolate. I have a slight tendency to go overboard with these things. We have a lot of eyeballs left over.

The first step is to make the French creams that will be used for the dirt in the zombie presentation. The creams have a flavored fondant center, dipped in chocolate, and then rolled in chopped nuts. Here, I am preparing the fondant by working it on a marble slab.

These are the completed fondant centers. The colors are all flavored differently -- I believe these are chocolate, pistachio, cherry, and orange. At this point, we're five days before the party.

Here, I am tempering the chocolate to prepare it for dipping the creams. I’m using a double boiler and candy thermometer.

After the chocolate was tempered, I poured out a portion onto the marble slab. I dipped each fondant center into the chocolate, and then rolled it in the chopped nuts. The candies were completed four days before the party.

As a side dish to the zombie cake, I decided I also wanted to make cordial cherry eyeballs. Before dipping the maraschino cherries, they were soaked in rum or brandy for several days. They were then dipped in the center filling and left to dry. After this, I dipped them in white chocolate. Dark chocolate is better, but it wouldn't really work for the eyeball concept.

Yes, we had lots of eyeballs. They were painted using powdered food coloring dissolved in melted cocoa butter.

And we finally start the cake! Yes, it really did require that much cake. We used a recipe from The Joy of Cooking for a very yummy sour cream chocolate chip cake. Red food coloring swirled in the batter gave it a delicious-looking bloody brain color. Any light-colored cake would work as well.

This is me straining the fresh raspberry sauce which will be used for blood. This is great over cake or ice cream, even if your dessert doesn't bleed. Puree 1 pint of raspberries, 3 tablespoons of sugar, and 2 teaspoons of lemon juice in a food processor. Then strain the mixture through a fine sieve to remove the seeds.

Ok, we've skipped a few steps here (clearly). This is the completed base of the cake. There are 5 layers of cake here, frosted with a chocolate ganache, which is made by melting semisweet chocolate with cream, and if you like (and why wouldn't you?) flavored with liqueur. Because it's so tall, we had to use interior supports, or the whole thing would have just toppled over. I cut a circle of foam core and stacked it between the middle layers. It's supported below with wooden dowels pushed into the cake, trimmed to just below the level of the layer. Of course, it was a little more complicated than that, since the plumbing system also had to be installed. You can see the large pastry bag to the right of the head, which is filled with whole lot of raspberry syrup. The bag is attached to a plastic tube, which curves behind the cake and enters in the back. Inside the cake, there's plumbing to send the syrup to outlets behind both eyes and the mouth. The outlets are blocked with frosting to prevent premature ejaculation, so to speak.

Once the base of the cake was completed, I started sculpting the facial features out of modeling chocolate, which is semisweet chocolate melted with corn syrup. Once chilled, it's very easy to work with and pretty tasty.

This is the completed face, with all the modeling chocolate details.

These are hard candy eyeballs, which were made by pouring out hot candy (sugar, water, corn syrup, and coloring) and pushing it into icky globs as it cools. Orville's right eye is already covered with a candy eye, so when the blood is pushed through, it'll fill up behind the eye before spilling out.

Orville's left eye has fallen out, so the other candy eyeball is just placed on the base. The blood details are done with royal icing.

The next step is to paint the face details and the blood. The paint is powdered food coloring mixed with melted cocoa butter. It has a consistency kind of like oil paints, and the cocoa butter can be melted in the microwave.

Here's me painting blood on the bits of exposed skull. The skull is done with royal icing, with modeling chocolate layered over it to make the ragged edges.

Here's Orville's hand, rising up out of the orange ground. Prior to placing the hand, the base was frosted with royal icing colored to match our site. The bones of the hand are mint-flavored hard candy, dipped in dark chocolate. The finger nails are royal icing.

I display my zombie hair-making tool. I made it by cutting up some old coat hangers taped to a ruler, creating sort of a deformed whisk. To make the hair, I dipped the ends of the deformed whisk in hot candy, and then whipped it back and forth over two wooden spoons attached to the edge of the counter. As the candy cooled, it hardened into wispy somewhat hair-like strands.

Here's the skull with the hair attached. The strands are thin enough that they just kind of melt onto the head.

Note the lovely hairy eyebrows. Orville's left shoulder is the raspberry blood-filled bag, covered with a t-shirt. His right shoulder is made of fondant (cake fondant, not the kind used as the centers of the chocolate creams).

You can see the layers on the platform here, created to give Orville uneven ground to climb out of. The platform is made out of foam core, glued together in layers and covered with royal icing.

And here we have the full dirt presentation. The French creams are arranged around Orville, creating a lovely field of dirt. The different types of nuts create a nicely varied texture.

This is the hard candy lettering that followed the curve of the base, reminding us, "They're Coming To Get You, Barbara!". Usually I just pour the hot candy directly onto the marble slab in the shape I want. The letters require more detail than that method allows. The candy is hot enough to melt a paper or plastic pastry tube, so I used a 70's-era metal pastry tube, and filled that with the hot candy. I wasn't able to find a similar one online, and I'm not sure they're even made any more.

Orville looks pretty happy in the French cream dirt. Too bad about his eye.

Wow, Orville has big hands. You can see that the shirt covering the raspberry blood bag has now been distressed (as you'd expect a zombie's shirt to be).

And here we are post-explosion! When I squished Orville's left shoulder, the blood shot out his left eye, slightly splattering both of us (but fortunately none of our guests).

I put our cleaver to good use serving the cake.

We did a fair job on the back of Orville's head, but of course we had at least three quarters of the cake left. My sister brought it in to work the next Monday, but her co-workers were oddly hesitant to cut into the face. She eventually dissected him and removed the face and all the plumbing, and that seemed to be more appetizing.

Lovely parting shot, eh? During the first spurt of blood, the frosting cap over the mouth didn't come off. Once I removed it, the blood just kind of oozed out the mouth, it was very nice. I really like the little drops of blood on the right cheek.