Little Gifts

This week's cake adventure was about 2/3rds successful. The instructions called for using a special (pricey) mini cake pan. Me, being the smart and frugal girl that I am said that's stupid, I'm just going to bake one big cake and cut it into small squares. There were two problems with this plan: 1) the cakes were ridiculously crumby and fell apart very easily, and 2) the sides were not cut at perfect angles so the glaze did not coat all the sides evenly. Oh well. Next time I'll use upside down cupcakes. 


So, these little devil's food cakes were coated with a thin layer of vanilla mint frosting, then chocolate glaze was poured over for that oh-so-smooth shine. Then I piped some small designs on a few of them, kind of like patterned wrapping paper. Then came the modeling chocolate, or chocolate plastic. It's a blend of melted chocolate and corn syrup that forms a pliable dough that can be molded, much like playdough. The instructions said to coat a surface with corn starch, which I did, but it made the previously smooth and shiny chocolate get all dusty and dry looking. I tried wiping it off but that didn't help. I need to do some more research on how to use this stuff. I still have a hunk of it and I'm going to experiment with it next week.