Competitive Chocolate

The final section of Ewald Notter's The Art of the Chocolatier is focused on chocolate showpieces and includes a chapter specifically on creating a showpiece for competition. There are pages of colour theory, shapes and their meanings, and guidelines for size and proportion. The result is an excellent resource for the design and execution of a competitive chocolate showpiece. 

Most interesting, perhaps, is Notter's advice for preparing for competition. He emphasizes that mental preparation is critical for success and that it's important to create a support network of friends, family, and coworkers. As one "trains" for competition (yes, trains), Notter suggests that one choose the right competition (level, style), gain experience by volunteering (or seeking out a mentor), research the venue and event (for supplies to bring, as well as temperature and humidity levels), learn about the judges (for their tastes and preferences), and understand the rules (theme, purpose, ingredients permitted, etc). 

All solid advice. I admit, however, that I find the image of "training" for a chocolate competition to be a bit humorous. In my head, I see a Rocky Balboa-type getting ready for the fight of his life in the kitchen. The truth is, sometimes tempering chocolate can feel like a battle...

I would imagine that anyone entering a competition has to be confident that they can nail the temper of chocolate every time, regardless of the kitchen conditions. And this is something that only comes with repetition and time. I also expect that the various techniques to be employed would be executed over and over again to ensure success while under pressure. And part of the training would surely involve making various components within particular time limits to ensure the entire piece can be created, assembled, and finished in the time allocated. In short, I suppose practice would make perfect -- and go a long way to building that mental preparation and confidence required to perform under pressure. 

In my opinion, however, Notter missed out on the true key to success: good footwear. I can say from personal experience that long hours on one's feet while working with chocolate can lead to excruciating back pain, so you wouldn't catch me in a chocolate competition without a trusty pair of Birkenstocks.

Actually, you'll never catch me in a competition. I abhor competition. I find watching competitions like Great Chocolate Showdown and School of Chocolate to be terribly stressful -- so I can't imagine what it would be like to actually be on the show, your every move and misstep caught on camera! 

But that doesn't mean I wouldn't try making a chocolate showpiece. I could imagine doing one in the future as a fundraiser for a charity or a show-stopping dessert on a special occasion. Or just a random chocolate adventure! After all, this haunted house in Notter's book really speaks to me, so I may need to enlarge the templates provided and give it a go at some point in the future!

Chocolate Teddy

Last week I read about modelling chocolate and recounted my experience with candy clay, wondering "aloud" whether real modelling chocolate would be more stable and work better. I made a note to try making it using Ewald Notter's recipe at some point in the future, but I didn't expect the future would come so soon. 

At least for 2023, Monday night is chocolate night in this apartment and I've been doing my best to keep with that schedule. When I found out that I had to attend a work-related meeting during what should have been chocolate time, I was disappointed and assumed that meant chocolate study just wouldn't happen this week. During an hour of down time between Teams meetings, I started making a grocery list and added the ingredients for modelling chocolate for a future chocolate session. That's when I realized I already had everything I needed. I looked at the clock: forty-five minutes until my meeting. I dropped everything and headed for the kitchen. 

Knowing I didn't want 1.5kg of modelling chocolate, I decided to scale down the Notter recipe and make only a quarter batch. Unlike the recipe for candy clay (which has two ingredients -- candy melts and corn syrup), the Notter recipe included water, sugar, glucose, and chocolate. It also contained instructions regarding the temperatures required to successfully combine all of the ingredients. With that information, I melted my chocolate first and let it cool on a marble slab while I prepared the other ingredients. After boiling the water and sugar in a saucepan and adding the glucose, I slowly streamed the sugar mixture to the chocolate while stirring. The ingredients incorporated beautifully. And then I did something I haven't done in a few years: I tabled the mixture on marble.

Shout out to (codename) Delta Charlie. Years ago when I decided to take the professional chocolatier program, I remember telling her about the many items on the supply list, including a marble slab. And when I returned from Newfoundland after Christmas, I found a marble cutting board among my Christmas presents. It served me well during the program and it came in handy once again this week!

It took about 15 minutes, but the mixture transformed from fairly fluid to more of a fudge-like consistency as I worked it on the marble with my plaster spackle knife. (Note: It's only ever been used with chocolate.) By the end, I was able to pick it up with a gloved hand and knead it. I loosely wrapped it in waxed paper so that it could crystallize for two hours and settled back into my office for a Teams meeting.  

When the meeting was over, I was rewarded with perfectly solidified chocolate modelling paste. More importantly, it did not exhibit any fat separation as I'd experienced with my previous attempt with candy clay. And when I cut off a small piece to taste, I was surprised to find that it had the taste and texture of a standard (creamy) chocolate fudge. I wrapped placed it in a Ziploc bag until I could use it.

Then on Tuesday after supper, I sat down to try making something with it. While I had originally thought about making a rose, as outlined in the Notter book, I ended up trying a teddy bear instead. I weighed out pieces of modelling chocolate for the body, head, ears, arms, legs, and tail, and set about forming them into the appropriate shapes. After adding a bowtie, I also formed a rose for him to carry.

This modelling chocolate was definitely easier to work with than the candy clay I'd tried in the past. It does soften as you work with it and the heat of your hands can make it almost too soft, but it still can be shaped and holds its form far better than the candy clay. And when it is left to set, it sets very firm. 

Now that I've had success with Notter's modelling chocolate, I am wondering if the technique he outlines could be applied to candy clay. Given his directions, it appears that the fat separation I experienced when making candy clay might be been caused by combining the corn syrup with the candy melts while they were still too hot. The only way to know is to try it again at some point in the future. It would be particularly convenient if the modified technique was the solution to this issue -- after all, candy melts come in a wide variety of colours and it would save time over making white modelling chocolate and colouring it as needed. 

In conclusion, I'll definitely make this again when the occasion calls for a cake topper or other decoration. The rose I made may fulfill its destiny (i.e. be eaten) this weekend. 

But as for the teddy bear, I'm not sure I could bit into him. He's just too cute! Would you? Comment below!

Modelling Chocolate

After a few weeks of playing with chocolate in preparation for Easter, I'm back to reading Ewald Notter's The Art of the Chocolatier. I've made it to the third section, which focuses on chocolate showpieces. 

The idea of chocolate showpieces really wasn't on my radar before doing the professional chocolatier program in 2018. It also wasn't part of the curriculum, but one of the instructors had done some training and so it was referenced as something we might pursue as advanced study. Five years later, though, the landscape has changed. Show chocolate has become more and more popular, thanks to social media like Instagram and Tiktok, and reality television series like Great Chocolate Showdown and School of Chocolate. 

In his section on chocolate showpieces, Notter includes a chapter on chocolate décor, including chocolate cigarettes. During my program, I made them once -- not because they were part of the curriculum, but because a colleague asked me if I had ever made them before and so I looked up the technique and gave it a go. The resulting white and dark chocolate "zebra" cigarettes weren't perfect, but they impressed me and her. Notter's book outlines many other options for décor and accessories, including chocolate curls, nests, and spiral cones, to name only a few. I've added some to my list of techniques to try during this year of chocolate.

In the same section on chocolate showpieces, he has a chapter on modelling chocolate, which he notes isn't widely used any more in confectionary work. He doesn't explain why that is the case, but I suppose techniques come in and out of fashion through time. And while Notter may be right that modelling chocolate made with real chocolate and used by professional confectioners is less common, it seems to me that modelling "chocolate" made with colourful candy melts is more common among amateurs as a alternative to fondant, gum paste, and the like (which often doesn't taste very good). It shows up on many cake decorating competitions as a medium for toppers and characters, and it's promoted widely on YouTube baking channels.

And while I have never made real modelling chocolate, I have indeed made the fake, candy-melt kind. 

As I recall, it didn't go well. I wanted black modelling chocolate to decorate a Halloween gingerbread house with a tree and giant spider. The recipe provided by Wilton called for candy melts and corn syrup. I followed it, but for whatever reason, the fat seemed to separate out from the clay and created a whitish film over the black candy mass. Once it cooled and set, I was able to knead it thoroughly and the fat seemed to reincorporate into the mixture, improving its appearance. But I found it incredibly difficult to work with.

The more I kneaded it and worked with it, the softer the candy clay became, eventually having the consistency of chewing gum. I had imagined being able to mold it around a wire or plastic straw form to create the tree trunk and limbs, but as it got softer and softer (presumably from the heat of my hands), it became harder and harder to get it to stick to the base. Eventually I maneuvered it into place, but I was disappointed with the end result. I had always understood modelling chocolate (or candy clay) to be more firm and stable than fondant, but that certainly wasn't the case for me. 

That said, it would be interesting to know how modelling chocolate made with real couverture would perform. Would it suffer from the same issues resulting from hot hands melting chocolate crystals? Or would it be more stable as a result of the proportions of sugar, glucose, and chocolate? Notter provides a few recipes in his book, as well as instructions for how to use it, like forming roses and rolled shapes. 

I guess there's only one way to find out -- and that's to add real modelling chocolate to the growing list of chocolate techniques to try!