in this lesson I'm going to show you how
to make modeling chocolate when we make
our modeling chocolate we use 1.2 kilos
or around 2 and 1/2 lb of white
chocolate uh we're choosing to use a
Nestle brand that we have here in
Australia um giradelli is a nice choice
in the US um we just want something that
isn't too waxy but you just don't want
it to be too expensive or it can become
really soft so especially when you're
starting out you want things that are
nice and firm and it's going to set up
well we're also going to use some light
corn syrup we're going to have one cup
of that and they're really the only two
ingredients that we need for this um
modeling chocolate for us is used in a
variety of ways we use it to make our
sculpted cakes with we do uh little
figurines with it and even chocolate
flowers so it will come in handy uh and
it's a really easy process it's just a
matter of slow slowly getting everything
up to the same temperature so I'm going
to start with our chocolate is in a heat
proof bowl that we're going to be
microwaving um and I'm going to get
ready our light corn syrup just a cup of
that again into something that's
microwave safe so it's about 250 MLS if
you're measuring 240 250 MLS depending
on where you are is a cup so we'll just
measure that
out so now these are heated up to
different amounts um when we're working
with our white chocolate what I'm going
to do is pop it into the microwave uh
30second increments at 50% if you've got
a big amount like this you can do your
first go at a full minute but then move
on to the 30second increments so because
this is going to take longer and and our
corn strip doesn't take very long at all
we're going to get started on our
chocolate first so pop it in for its
first session and then we've got a
spatula to help Stir It and combine it
each
time so now at this stage I have heated
it up for around 2 and 1/2 minutes all
up you can see that there is still some
big chunks of chocolate in there I like
to still give it a really good stir and
just make sure that I can get as much of
that to dissolve naturally as possible
so that I'm not overheating it
unnecessarily um when you're doing
chocolate work it goes through a
crystallization process as it heats up
and if you heat it too quickly um and
basically too much too soon
you will skip all of that and it will
really seize up and then you won't be
able to use it at all so you just want
to gradually keep doing this um so
looking at this I can see that we're
probably going to need at least another
20 to 30 seconds and we'll have another
look but you just want to make sure that
you've got it to dissolve naturally as
best as you can and don't just get into
a habit of chucking it straight into the
microwave over and over or otherwise the
temperature will get far too high for us
to work with
okay all right now I've done another 30
seconds with this in the microwave again
at
50% and I'm just stirring it really well
to make sure there's only little bits of
lumps now so I'm fairly certain that we
won't need to heat this again to get
those to dissolve so I'm just going to
mix it for say 20 30 seconds or so it's
really important not to overheat your
chocolate so just when you think you've
got it close just keep stirring and
stirring because you really do want to
make sure that you don't keep popping it
in the microwave
unnecessarily okay and we can see that
it's now looking much nicer and much
smoother and
creamier okay so now that we've got that
we can let that sit it's only going to
take us a minute also to get this next
section ready so we can leave that there
and that will stay at that consistency
we're going to take our light corn syrup
and we're going to place it in the
microwave this time we're working at 20%
instead of 50% because this will heat up
a lot faster so I'm going to begin with
a 20 second increment give it a stir if
it's still not ready then I might add
another 10 seconds to it and basically
what you're looking for is you want both
of them to be around the same
temperature to each other so I don't use
the fancy thermometers and things like
that I actually just want to go by touch
and just get them to be as close as
possible um the closer that they are the
more that they'll Bond easily and it'll
be a lot easier process for you so we're
going to pop this in and um get it ready
and then we'll be able to combine them
all right so I've got my corn syrup out
you can feel that it's just a little bit
warmer than Body
temp the easiest way is literally just
to have a feel and have a
feel and they seem just about right now
every microwave is different same goes
for the chocolate um with our corn syrup
in our microwave it only took 20 seconds
once um and then an extra 10 seconds but
depending on which one you have you
might find it takes a grand total of say
60 seconds but just keep doing it 10
seconds at a time you don't want to rush
this um now that we've got it it's a
good time to add a little bit of color
in if you're going to be making all of
this a solid color you can do it later
on but I just find that if this entire
um batch is used for one project in one
color it's easy now to just get a head
start on that coloring process now
chocolate and food colors don't really
like each other but corn syrup tends to
really latch on well and help it to
absorb in it's kind of the same um how
there's other products out on the market
flow coat and things like that that you
can use so that you can use your regular
colors with your chocolate so I'm just
going to apply a couple of squirts this
color today um I'm using just a little
bit of Terra
Cotta I'm gonna give that a
stir and you can see how it absorbs the
color really well into
this now if you're using a huge amount
of color you might want to start taking
out just a small section of your corn
syrup quantity um but if you're just
using a gel color like this and just a
couple of squirts it's really only a
matter of say three Ms or so so it's
really not a big
deal all right now that we've got that
in
the way that we combine it together is
I'm just going to pour this directly
into the center I'm not going to pour it
all the way around I'm just going to
make basically a big well in the middle
of
it get the excess
out and then we're going to work quite
quickly going all the way around and
combining the entire corn syrup
in making sure that you're scooping at
the bottom bottom all the
time now having the color gives you a
really good indication of whether you've
stirred it enough and combined it
basically you want it to be fully
combined um but it is something it's
kind of like when you bake muffins you
can overbeat it and you can over mix
this and it will actually start to
separate
again
okay so the color has fairly well
combined we're going to be kneading it
in a moment and anyway so that's fine
now I've got out some parchment paper um
it's known as baking paper parchment wax
um depending on where you are just got a
large section of it and I'm just going
to pour this
out just onto there come
on grab our spatula give it a bit of a
helping hand it wants to latch onto the
bottom so just make sure that you've got
all of
that okay okay and now what we're going
to do is just allow it to rest for an
hour then we're going to come back and
give it a really good neede so just let
it stay out at room temperature at this
point it'll just cool a little bit and
then it'll be ready for us to move
on so now we've let this rest for around
an hour you can see that we've got a
little bit of chocolate showing um so
we're going to mix that all together now
you don't have to worry too much about
it when you're combining it in the first
place you just want to make sure that
you're um just getting it as combined as
you can without over
mixing now all we're going to be doing
is just joining the chocolate and the
corn syrup together a little bit more we
don't want to leave it for longer than
an hour before we do this kneading
process because otherwise it will cool
down too much and if you did have any
sections of that were just corn syrup
itself it will crystallize and it will
harden into sort of chunks in it and
you'll get Chunky um sort of consistency
to your modeling chocolate and we we
want it to be really smooth when we're
working with it so while it's still
fairly
Supple it's a good time to just mix it
together and to make sure that it is
fully
combined now when we made this we were
using a Nestle chocolate um it's sort of
a chocolate that's in the middle a
little bit um it's not a really really
soft strong quality um but it's
definitely not a cooking chocolate or
anything like that um this is going to
be perfect for working with um making
say chocolate flowers um wrapping around
cakes and making figurines if you want
something to be a little bit more
pliable in the end so that you can roll
it out and actually cover round surfaces
and things like that for sculpting um
then we want to look at maybe adding
half of this sort of quality and half
maybe a Belgium cure or a lint something
that's um a little bit softer and a
little bit higher quality just so you
get that flexibility in it so we can see
that there's no chunks in this it's
looking really good our color is is a
reasonable strength we're going to tweak
this as we go you can just add color
directly to this now um but it's just a
good starting off point really and then
what we're going to do is pop that
directly into um a plastic sealable
bag and ideally we' like to leave this
rest for about 2 hours before we go
about using it that way it will firm up
for us um if you're in a time crunch
and you need to use this right away um
we recommend just putting it into the
fridge for say 20 minutes don't keep it
too long or it will get a little bit
stiff um but ideally we're just going to
leave this rest for a couple of hours
and then we'll be able to mix in more
color or just use it straight away