AI am learning on my own how to decorate cakes. I would like to pipe chocolate on cakes but need to know how to keep the chocolate flowing and not get clogged at the end from hardening. Also is it necessary to use oil to thin out chocolate and if so how much do you need.

AUse a small amount in a parchment bag with no piping tip, just a hole cut in the end. A piping tip will be cool and harden the chocolate quickly. A small parchment bag will stay warm from the heat of your hand, and you should be able to pipe with it for a long time.

In my profile pictures, I have salted caramel cupcakes topped with piped chocolate butterflies (piped on parchment, allowed to set, and then placed on the cupcakes). I piped 30 butterflies for those, with the chocolate staying fluid the whole time.

AYou don't necessarily need oil in it. Oil or melted butter mixed in with chocolate will help stay shiny after it hardens, if you don't want a dull finish. Just a little bit, though. Tempered chocolate will harden shiny on kts own, though. Are you using real chocolate and tempering it, or coating chocolate, (like candy melts) which are made to harden? Real, untempered chocolate will stay fluid for much longer, although it will not ever set up as hard. It will set up enough to hold its shape, but you can't do transfer designs with it, and it will get melty in any kind of heat at all.

AI will have to try using the parchment paper. I was using candy melts in a disposable piping bag with no tip. I thought I would have the opposite effect because normally when I work with chocolate such as modeling chocolate my hands get hot and of coarse everything starts to melt. What chocolate do you use to make the butterflies? Thank you for your information. I am going to keep practicing.

ADefinitely go for the parchment. Piping with a disposable bag with no tip kindof gives you a flat string of chocolate instead of a round one, and it doesn't have as nice of a visual appeal.

parchment bag, or plastic bottle with a small plastic tip.

AFor chocolate transfer work, like the butterflies, I use guittard semisweet a'peels. They're a compound candy coating, like candy melts, but better tasting.