So this is a taster before my celebratory cake blog (look out for this shortly). Cake decorations can be fun to make – especially if they are made from chocolate! I wanted to try and make some decorative finish to my celebratory cake I was making and so dug out my cookbooks to look for inspiration. I wanted to go for a chocolate curl or something similar and so learnt how to make chocolate caraque. You may be thinking…what is that? But it is very similar to a chocolate curl, but a bit more informal.
Ingredients
It really depends on how much you need to decorate with but I would say about 100g is a good amount of chocolate to use. You can then keep what you don’t use in the fridge for weeks after to use for something else! It can be between 50 and 70% cocoa solids depending on your tastes and if you want to experiment with different flavours then I can certainly recommend using half orange dark chocolate (Lidl do a really nice one – see the photo below)! If not, why not add a few drops of orange essence?
Step 1
Melt your chocolate gradually in the microwave on short 30 second blasts, stirring in between intervals.
Step 2
When the chocolate is melted pour this over a marble surface. Alternatively use a glass surface. Spread this thinly with a pallet knife until even.
Step 3
Leave to set a little until firm, but not hard enough that it is unable to work with. If it sets too hard, leave to soften a little by a warm oven.
Step 4
With a long bladed knife, apply an even pressure whilst scraping the chocolate.
Step 5
Store in a air tight container until ready to use. They do not need to be in the fridge, just in a cool and dry cupboard.
Step 6
You can also make chocolate curls by scoring squares and scraping these from corner to corner.
This is my first time making caraque and mine might not be the best I’m happy to admit that. I’m sure I will perfect them over time with more practise. However, I think they would make any cake sing special occasion and they did the trick when I had a superior cake to prepare….
