Making modeling chocolate is easy and really fun! Now you can eat your play dough and it actually tastes great! I created this cute little elephant cake topper for my sister in law’s baby shower. She had found a pic on pinterest of a cake she wanted me to re-create for her party. Admittedly I was clueless in how to create this cake topper. I thought, “Maybe I should just try to purchase a similar looking toy online?” Well, after doing a bit of research I learned about modeling chocolate, and it sounded crazy easy. I whipped up this little baby elephant in about 45 minutes, including recipe time. Read below to see how I did it!
How to Make Easy Modeling Chocolate. It starts with your favorite chocolate, almond bark or chocolate chips. Any of those will do. If you want to add food coloring, use white chocolate. Brown chocolate doesn’t really take food coloring so well. Place 16 oz of chocolate in a microwave safe bowl and melt it on half power for about 1 to 1 and 1/2 minutes. Take it out and stir it with a spatula. If there’s a few solid chunks left they should melt as you continue to stir. The big takeaway here is to NOT over cook it. Chocolate can easily scorch and become grainy and useless.
Next you’ll need to get your handy dandy food thermometer. Any kind will do. The chocolate needs to cool to about 91° degrees before going on with the next step. You’ll need to stir it every few minutes as it cools.
When the desired temp has been reached, add in 1/3 cup of corn syrup (liquid sugar) to start and mix with the spatula until it just comes together. Dump it out onto a cold surface and knead it with your hands just like dough. (I placed a clean baking sheet in the fridge before I started the recipe.) You may need to add more corn syrup depending on what type of chocolate you used. Each kind has it’s own amount of cocoa butter, so it’s hard to give an exact amount of corn syrup needed. Once it comes together in a nice little ball, you can divide it and add any food coloring you like! I used wilton gel coloring for this project. Just knead in the color. Then let the chocolate ‘rest’ for about 10 minutes before beginning to sculpt. Roll it out with a rolling pin, make little balls, snakes whatever you can think of!
This little elephant was made with a ball for the body, equal sized balls for the arms and legs that I just rolled into tootsie roll like shapes. I made a little impression with my pinky finger on the body, put a dot of corn syrup inside and attached the arms and legs. Then I just smoothed them out. Since the head was a bit large, I stuck a toothpick down into the body leaving about 1/4 inch above to stick the head onto. The head I just fashioned myself starting with a ball and molding the shape by hand.
The eyes and cheeks were drawn on using wilton candy markers. When she was all done, I popped her in the fridge. Once she was set on the cake, my masterpiece was accomplished. She didn’t turn out as cute as the one in the pinterest picture, but I though I came in a close second. :0) I hope you have tons of fun making your own creations with modeling chocolate!
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How To Make Modeling Chocolate
- Total Time: 15 minutes
Description
Turn your favorite chocolate into edible play-dough with this simple recipe.
Ingredients
- 16 ounces your favorite chocolate
- 1/3 cup – 2/3 cup corn syrup
- food coloring
Instructions
- Place a clean metal baking sheet in the fridge to chill. Break chocolate into chunks and melt the chocolate in the microwave on half power for 1 to 2 minutes.
- Allow chocolate to cool to 90-91ºF, stirring often as it cools.
- Start by pouring in 1/3 cup corn syrup and stir with a spatula until it comes together.
- Fetch the chilled baking sheet and pour out the chocolate on it.
- Knead the modeling chocolate by hand, adding small amounts of corn syrup as needed, until it becomes soft, and smooth like play dough. Knead in any food coloring if desired. (You can wear gloves if you want to keep your skin from being dyed.)
- Let the modeling chocolate rest for 10 minutes before using it to sculpt figures or cut shapes.
- Wrap any extra modeling chocolate tightly in plastic wrap, then seal in a zip top bag.
- Store at room temperature for up to two months.
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Category: Dessert
