Monday, April 7, 2008

Flowers From My Kitchen

The child couldn't make up her mind.
One day it was butterflies. An hour later ladybugs were requested.
Finally, she settled on flowers.
We were talking about the decorative topping for her birthday cupcakes.

Several year ago I had made simple designs using melted chocolate piped onto parchment paper and I remembered being quite happy with the results. Great to embellish simple cakes.
But since she wanted colourful flowers (not just chocolate flowers), I turned to candy melts.
Though the process of making these flowers is just a little time consuming, the results are so wow-inducing that it is worth all the time.

Here is how I made them:
Step 1
Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper (not wax paper).
Melt about ½ cup of chocolate chips. I usually microwave them for about 20 seconds at a time till most of them are melted. At this point, stir the chips till they all melt and become smooth.
Spoon the melted chocolate in the corner of a zip top bag. Snip off a tiny piece of that corner. How much you snip off depends on how thick you want the outline.
Pipe the desired shape onto the parchment paper. Since I was making flowers, I piped an outline of the flowers.
Let the outline dry completely before moving onto Step 2.

Step 2
Follow directions on the package to melt the candy pieces. Spoon the melted chocolate in the corner of a zip top bag. Snip off a tiny piece of that corner.
Pipe the melted candy to fill in the petals and the center of the flowers. Make sure you completely fill into the outline.

Don't worry about flowers not being smooth. The side that is visible right now is the wrong side. The other side that is perfectly flat and smooth will be visible on the cupcakes.

After the flowers have cooled they slip right off the parchment paper.
They can be stored for several weeks in an airtight container.
As they taste pretty good on their own, you have to hide them from sneaky people.

The finished product:


Here is a flower topped cupcake. These were some super moist chocolate cupcakes. More about them in the next post.

13 comments:

Richa said...

so cute :) she must be thrilled!

evolvingtastes said...

WOW indeed. Something new new only I am learning.

TheCooker said...

Richa: totally thrilled!
ET: Yoda-talk! Star Wars marathon?

theysaywordscanbleed said...

That's cute, thanks, i might just try this later :)

Arlene,
Bainbridge Island florist

A-kay said...

Wow... that looks so good. Awesome!

ranji said...

wow!!they look really cute...nice technique..thanks for sharing:)

Suganya said...

Moist chocolate cupcakes? Don't forget to share with us.

musical said...

Really, this is sooooooooo adorable :). She must be overjoyed with these cute things on her b'day cupcakes :).

rashmi said...

wow those really look pretty.....she must be very happy...by the way i just love ur blog...yesterday i tried ur biscotti ..they just turned out awesome...thans for the recipe....

TheCooker said...

Arlene, Oh I do hope you try making.
A-kay, Ranji: Thanks.
Sug: you bet, they are coming up real soon.
Musy/ Surili: she did absolutely love them. I'm right now 'the best Aai in the whole wide world'.
Rashmi: Thank you thank you for your sweet words. I'm so glad you liked the biscotti!

Sagari said...

beautifulllll flowers

Miri said...

These look super cute - thanks so much for sharing. Is there a special candy you have to use for this? and how does one melt it?
Im not sure if we get candy here especially for melting...do let me know - my little girl's birthday is coming up and I would love to do this for her.

Miri said...

Thanks so much for taking the time to reply on my blog....I'm obviously having a "Du-h" moment....but I can't seem to find your email id.....

Could you mail me on peppercornmill@gmail.com? Thanks so much - and also for pointing out that my mail id is not visible on my blog - I fixed that now.

Miri

 
Add to Technorati Favorites