Making modeling chocolate

We made modeling chocolate a long time ago and had enough fun to try it again. I can't say it tastes very good, honestly. The linked post talks about how much better it is than fondant, but that is a low, low bar. We also had a little trouble not having it get all sticky after a while. You do need to keep it coldish…but not too cold. Maybe we'd be able to get it more exactly right after a few tries? It was a fun way to work with chocolate, anyway. I especially think the white chocolate in pastel colors is pretty for cake decorating!  

Here's the recipe from King Arthur Flour:

Dark modeling chocolate

1 1/3 cups (227 g) chopped semisweet chocolate (not chips)

1/3 cup (103g) light corn syrup

White modeling chocolate

1 1/3 cups (227g) chopped white chocolate (not chips)

1/3 cup (103g) light corn syrup

1. In a heatproof bowl set over simmering water (or in a double boiler), melt the chocolate. Stir constantly until melted; don’t let its temperature rise above 110°F. Remove from the heat.

2. Warm the corn syrup to 110°F, add to the melted chocolate, and stir until the mixture is uniform. It will look grainy at first but smooth out as you keep stirring.

3. Allow the mixture to cool, then cover and let rest at room temperature for 2 hours. It will set up and become quite stiff.

4. When you’re ready to use it, take a chunk and work it in your hands until it softens. From this point you can tint it with gel colors, roll it out and cut it with decorative cutters, or shape it any way you choose, like modeling clay; the chocolate will set once more as it cools.

Chocolate Gnomie

Tiny police car Junie made for Ziggy

Tiny chocolate rose

Chocolate Bendigo??!

I made cupcakes and said each person could decorate two of them however he or she pleased. (Some children did more.) These were my two! Simple.

I loved these rose ones!

Cute nature themes

Junie's fish and pig

Gus's chocolate Caw

Ziggy's dots and police car

I'm actually not sure what this one is. A penguin next to a duck? A penguin in a canoe? A Caw in a bird airplane?

Daisy's cupcakes

Ace of Clubs cupcake Daisy made for Malachi

Teddy's witch hat and…Eiffel Tower?? Trumpet?

Goldie's bunny with egg and beautiful pink roses (with butterfly). So pretty!

And here they all are together. They do look very pretty!

Hot Chocolate through the ages

We learned, of course, about the ways the Aztec and Maya used cacao to make hot chocolate. There are various recipes for "Aztec hot chocolate" online and most of them are probably too spicy for us. And the more authentic they are, probably the less we would like them…but we did want to at least try a little of that bitter chocolatl-style drink.

I had some cocoa nibs (which is just raw cacao bean, crushed a little) so we tried eating those, both roasted and unroasted, to see what they tasted like. We added some of the nibs to our blender with chili powder, cinnamon, vanilla, and water to make our chocolatl. (Which, by the way, we learned means "bitter water." Very apt.)

We poured it back and forth between vessels to make it foamy, like the Maya are shown doing in some old  pictures. (See also here)

It's pretty interesting how grainy those cacao nibs are, no matter what you do to them. We pulverized them in our powerful blender, which you'd think would grind them way more finely than a mortar and pestle ever could, but they still don't just dissolve. And the drink just keeps an oily film on top too. (Emulsifiers help with this, as we learned later.) All the way through the early European days of drinking chocolate in the 1500s and 1600s, through Revolutionary War times and even later, drinking chocolate would have been a little grainy and oily like this. It's the conching [or melanging] process, where it is ground and mixed for three days or whatever it is, which finally makes the chocolate smooth and silky. And aren't we all glad it does?

For purposes of demonstration and because we didn't want to end this activity with a bitter taste in our mouths (ha ha), we skipped a few centuries and made Parisian hot chocolate for a little tea (chocolate) party. We always appreciate a chance to use Nana's pretty tea set!

It's traditional for the eldest daughter to pour, is it not?

Though I don't know if the eldest daughter should have a chocolate mustache.

(I think our tea party last time was nicer. But this one was fun too. And if you want the hot chocolate recipe, it's at this link!)

On another day, we learned about different types of modern (dare I say avant-garde, even?) hot chocolate! We split into teams to make some different kinds. We did have a recipe book but most people just took "inspiration" from it rather than real recipes. Daisy and Gus made…I can't remember, something with vanilla bean, cloves, and milk chocolate, I think. Daisy always comes up with great hot chocolate creations. She prides herself on it (justly).

Nice and foamy!

Teddy and Ziggy made a different kind of hot chocolate, can't recall at the moment

And Junie and Clementine made a white hot chocolate drink. Really delicious!

Junie wrote down her (made-up) recipe so we wouldn't forget it. It was delicious!

Yum! Daisy is well on her way to opening her Hot Chocolate Shop…and she'll have some great recipes and employees to help her!

Guest Speaker: Tye Reeder

My friend Tye, who I haven't talked to since high school but occasionally see on instagram, has a chocolate subscription business and also does a bunch of other interesting things like community farm-to-table dinners. I contacted her to see if she would be willing to teach a little workshop for us about chocolate and just about starting a business in general! It's a topic Daisy is very interested in. Tye was amazing and invited us to her beautiful house up in Huntsville. I love the drive up the canyon to Morgan (where my dad grew up) but have never made the turn into Huntsville, so I was happy to have a reason to drive that way!

Tye was so awesome. She had raw cacao beans and let us roast them and crush them to get the nibs out. It was cool to try for ourselves this process we'd watched in videos and seen in books!

She also has her own melanger. It's just like a little mixer but it has a stone wheel in there that grinds and grinds the chocolate until it is smooth and not grainy. It takes a long time with heat and friction working on the cocoa mass—something like three days!

She let us try some chocolate right out of the melanger. We dipped a bunch of things in it and it was so good!

Her little display of chocolates she sells in her shop

She also did a chocolate tasting session with us, progressing from lighter to darker and separating each type with a palate-cleansing pretzel. So much fun!

We had a great time talking and just catching up. This interaction the children get to have with other adults, learning what they specialize in and seeing the interesting career paths and talents they've developed, is one of the best parts of homeschooling, I think. Hearing about some of the things Tye has learned starting her own business was so fascinating!

And everyone loved her dogs.

My girls hit it off right away with her cute daughter (also homeschooled) too!