Chocolate Monogram Initial - Question
Decorating By darkchocolate Updated 29 Jun 2007 , 2:14am by christeena
I would like to put a chocolate monogram initial at the top of a cake. My question is how do I get the monogram to stay in place?
Thanks,
darkchocolate
Hi there - I just did one of these last weekend, so I'm happy to help you! I did find the idea I used on this site, but I'll save you a search. This is assuming you want your letter to be made of chocolate, and not gum paste or some other medium.
Print out the letter(s) you want in the size you want, then lay parchment paper or waxed paper over the top. If you are writing free-hand, you can obviously skip this step. Determine where on the letter(s) you can hide a couple of skewers. For example, if it's a letter "K", you can hide a skewer down the left-hand side & maybe a shorter one at the far right lower corner...I used 6" skewers, with about 2" of them "in" the monogram, and 4" free to stick down into the cake.
Lay your skewers on the parchment & pipe over your letter(s) using candy melts or tempered chocolate (you are hiding the skewers within the letter). Let it dry & harden completely, then pipe over it again once or twice until it's the thickness & strength you want. Let harden again. Carefully flip the whole thing over, peel off the parchment/waxed paper, and repeat on the opposite side (piping over the back of the letter to strengthen it, and the skewers will be further hidden.)
Then you just gently slide the skewers down into the top of your cake until the letter(s) is/are standing up the way you want. I did a 3-5" tall, 3-letter monogram for a wedding cake, the thickness of the letters was about 1/3-1/2", and it stood at the wedding reception for about 6 hours with zero stability issues.
This was kinda hard to explain, so I hope it helps!
Best of luck.
Thank you so much, rits, your post really helped me and I am anxious to try a chocolate monogram.
All the details are great and I really appreciate it.
I do have one question though, what did you use to pipe the momogram? I am not good with parchment triangles, so I am thinking about using a decorators bag with my metal tip and letting it rest on a towel or something in my electric skillet. I had to melt my chocolate in a bowl in my electric skillet the other day when the microwave went out, and that worked great.
darkchocolate
You can also use a disposable decorator bag or even a heavy duty ziploc bag. since the chocolate is very soft you do not have to put a great deal of pressure on the bag and the chocolate flows quite nicely. In fact, using the ziploc, you don't have to use a tip because you can control the size of the opening with a pair of scissors. 
You can also use disposable bag with metal tip and place on a piece of wax paper on a heating pad. Fold heating pad over the bag to keep it fluid or I just melt in the bag the same way - takes about a half hour to melt at med. high and then turn to low to keep the chocolate fluid.
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