The Magic of Modeling Chocolate

Definitely the best thing I learned at the ICES convention this year was modeling chocolate (aka chocolate clay, chocolate plastic, chocolate leather, candy clay)! Many people are afraid of (or at least intimidated by) chocolate because it has to be tempered properly in order to use it.

Interestingly, chocolate's melting temperature is below human body temperature so as you consume it, bot the texture and the flavor change. This low melting temperature makes it easy to melt chocolate, but it is extremely susceptible to burning. The other major issue people experience while working with chocolate is seizing. If water comes into contact with the chocolate, the sugar and cacao absorb the moisture and cause the chocolate to clump, or seize. Once chocolate seizes, you can continue to add water or cream to create a chocolate syrup, but you will never be able to recover this chocolate to temper it.

The best way to melt chocolate is microwaving for a few seconds at a time (this works best if you break your chocolate into smaller pieces first) or using a double boiler. To make a double boiler, bring a pot of water to boil on the stove. Set a heat-proof bowl containing your chocolate on top, making sure that the bottom of the bowl does not touch the water. This method is more time intensive but less prone to burning.

When the melted chocolate cools, the cocoa butter creates crystal structures dependent on the temperature of the chocolate. If the chocolate cools at its own rate, the crystal structures are loose and the chocolate becomes dull, soft, and greasy. However, if you keep the chocolate at 88 degrees Fahrenheit (31 Celsius) while it cools, the chocolate forms dense crystals which are called seed crystals. If enough of these seed crystals are allowed to form, the chocolate will harden with a slight sheen and snap when bent after it completely cools. This tempering process gives the chocolate extra strength for things like flowers, sugar sculptures, and chocolate cups. It also prevents the cocoa butter from rising to the surface of the chocolate and creating unsightly discolorations. I won't go into the process of tempering chocolate here, but there are a lot of resources online if you just search for "tempering chocolate."

As a side note, candy melts (aka candy coating) that you can get in your local craft store do NOT contain cocoa butter so they do not need to be tempered.

In any event, I was among the masses of people intimidated by chocolate so I decided to take a few demos about it at this year's convention. What I discovered was the incredible ease and versatility of modeling chocolate! I will be playing around with some recipes this week so I'll post the ones I decide I like the best.

Anyway, I brought home some modeling chocolate from my hands-on classes with Bronwen Weber and B. Keith Ryder (see photos) so I played with it a bit. A LONG time ago, Shelby had asked me to make a cake for Ben's graduation - similar to the graduate hat cake, but this time with a rat in a lab coat next to it. I immediately decided to do the rat in modeling chocolate! Not only was it incredibly easy, but he smelled divine!

This is Ben's cake - an edible graduation hat sitting on top of a fondant dissertation (of course, Ben's is much thicker than this one!). The mortar board is decorated with neurons because one of Ben's neuronal images made the cover of a scientific journal! Yay! And don't forget our little chocolate murine friend!


Here's a close-up of the chocolate rat. I gave him a mowhawk because Ben had a blue mowhawk (that Shelby actually dyed for him) when Adam and I first met him. The thing on his ear is supposed to be an ear tag, which is a way some scientists identify their lab rats, but it looks more like an earing, doesn't it? I made the rat a little chubby since my lab studies obesity - he looks a lot like our rats but smells WAY better!


In Bronwen's class, we learned how to hand-model faces with marzipan, fondant, and modeling chocolate. I'll post the pictures of my faces soon, I promise!


And in Keith Ryder's class, we made a chocolate box. On the top of the box, we used chocolate transfer sheets (so fun yet so expensive, maybe I'll demo it later...) and topped it with modeling chocolate roses. He's holding my box in the picture.


Both classes were awesome, and I also attended a demonstration by Mike McCarey (you know him from the Food Network Challenge) about all the wonderful things you can do with modeling chocolate.

Shout Outs!

A few people in my life have recently been recognized for their superior effort at work so I thought I'd give them a quick shout out here too!

**Adam's company, Affiliated Engineers, was ranked 4th on the Building Design & Construction's 2009 Giants - Top 50 Engineering Firms Survey. All that engineering gobbeldy gook is way over my head so I can't explain what that means, I just know it's good! Way to go!

**Before Goody's closed its doors, my aunt Deborah Roche' was named The Associate of the 3rd Quarter! Amazing work!

**My mom, Sue Mitchell, a teacher in TX, was recognized as a district leader in elementary mathematics instruction. She was then chosen to be trained as a First Steps in Mathematics facilitator. This means that she'll be training and mentoring elementary school teachers in diagnosing what students think and know about mathematics, identifying what they need to learn, and choosing learning experiences to help them achieve the outcomes, including finding learning and developmental gaps and understanding how to fill those gaps. Wow, we need more dedicated teachers like you!

**My dad, Bob Mitchell, was recognized as Associate of the Month at JC Penney. The following was written about him (slightly edited to make sense to all of us non-JCP employees):

(Bob's the one holding the certificate.)

"Bob, Sr. Allocator, came to the rescue when an Allocator needed help in processing her first new item. This was the first time for this Allocator to use this new program. Not to mention that this new item was a 'Power Item' and the vendor was new [also]. This Allocator felt the odds were against her when she started this project.

Bob rallied when this Allocator came to him for help! He walked her through the best practices. Bob followed up with this Allocator for updates and jumped in to help with all her questions. On Monday mornings he sought out to make sure the report was in line with [company] estimates. Despite his busy daily schedule he found time to attend this Allocator's vendor meetings and provided support with the vendor's questions regarding the process.

In addition to being a great coach, Bob is a great team member. He asks thoughtful questions and offers insightful comments during weekly allocation meetings. He is known throughout the Home team as a 'go to' person for answers. Bob learns all he can about the retail business in the Home Division.

Bob is truly deserving of the Associate of the Month title. He is a leader of excellence!"

Cancer Vixen Winner!

Congrats to Shirley for winning the book Cancer Vixen!

I'm home from the ICES Convention and it was AWESOME! I was so busy running from demonstration to volunteering post to demonstration to the vendor room (I just HAD to spend some money on the latest cake decorating tools) that I rarely had time to eat. Yikes! Luckily, the theme was "Sweet Time in '09" so there was plenty of candy and cake around. Not great for the waist line, but perfect for that much-needed boost of energy! Update: My sugar bouquet made it in one piece - only one small petal was damaged but it was barely noticeable. Stay tuned for a few of my favorite photos from the convention. I took about 450 photos, but I won't subject you to all that!

As a side note, as much as I liked my previous pink and brown blog template, too many people were having trouble leaving comments. I'm going back to the original - after all, why mess with something that isn't broken, right?!

ICES Convention - Here I Come!

I leave tomorrow for the ICES Convention in St. Charles, IL! Like always, I'm going to try to participate in the convention in every possible way - go to as many demos as time allows, take hands-on classes, take TONS of photos of the cake gallery, volunteer, and bring a sugar display! Because I'm flying to the convention this year, it's much more difficult to bring a dummy cake. Instead, I made a bridal bouquet made of sugar! I've packed it up as tightly as I can so hopefully (a) they'll let me carry it on the plane and (b) it survives the trip!

The bouquet is made up of pink roses, white stephanotis, pink hydrangea, and yellow & pink calla lilies.

I've been working from home on my dissertation a lot lately. During the day, I write...and at night, I work on cake stuff! I usually move the dining room table into the living room so I can take TV breaks occasionally. Anyway, during the day, Nani constantly wants to sleep in my lap. One night last week, Nani jumped on this chair all by herself...she KNOWS she's not allowed up there, but she did it anyway. It was like she felt like she was entitled to it since it was empty. Please excuse the condition of the living room. If you were ever wondering what it looked like while I worked, now you know! The flowers in the background are the ones I used in the bouquet above.


The best part, though, was when Nani stood on the chair and leaned over to the banister. Check out this photo Adam caught (yes, her open eye is scary...they always turn out like that in photos...oh well!):


Is she seriously winking? She's mischievous alright! But that face is so cute...how could you do anything but laugh???

Gator Gala 2009 - Fight Against Breast Cancer!

The Collaboration of Scientists for Critical Research in Biomedicine, Inc. (CSCRB) is comprised of a group of current graduate students and alumni from the Interdisciplinary Program in Biomedical Science at UF (this is the program I'm in too). The group works as a nonprofit to help raise awareness and funds for research in areas that they feel are currently lacking attention.

For example, one of their committee member's mother was recently diagnosed with Triple Negative Breast Cancer (TNBC), a very rare form but one that spreads rapidly. Her mother chose a treatment program that promised to prolong her life for anywhere between 2 months and 2 years...unfortulately, she passed away only 6 weeks later. Her diagnosis, however, sparked these graduate students to conduct literature searches to see what research has been done about TNBC. To their surprise and horror, very little was known about TNBC - except that there is no effective treatment for it!

You see, cancers usually secrete certain hormones in order to grow. Cancer treatments usually target these hormones to prevent their growth and cause the cancer to slowly die. However, TNBC secretes none of the hormones that you usually see from cancer so scientists and doctors have been unable to develop effective treatments against it.

Earlier this year, the CSCRB hosted a 5K run/walk fundraiser. They got a terriffic turn-out and raised a lot of money, but their ultimate goal is to fund a seed grant at UF for a laboratory to specifically research TNBC. They began planning the Gator Gala in hopes of reaching their goal. Recently, I was recruited by the group (I know, you were beginning to wonder what any of this had to do with me, right?) because of my abilities to "decorate my house"...hm...whatever!

The theme of the Gala was Set Sail for Discovery, and I was put in charge of event decorations. Of course, I volunteered to do the cake too! I, in turn, recruited Elise, whose major in event planning REALLY came in handy! The event was a success! We had a silent auciton, heavy hor d'oeuvres provided by Cabana Cove Caribbean Grill (yummy!), my cake, a special ballet performance, a jazz band, and a keynote address! The numbers are still being crunched, but so far it looks like at least 100 people came to the event (some people purchased tickets but didn't come to the event) and we raised at least $10,000!

My Cake:

Unfortunately, it was a very rainy day so my waves wilted a bit...but you knew it was supposed to look like water, right? Gotta love this Florida humidity! Anyway, each of the four tiers was a different flavor:
-Gluten-free chocolate cake with raspberry cream filling
-Yellow cake with lemon curd and raspberry cream filling
-Chocolate cake with honey-soaked bananas and peanut butter filling (this seemed to be everyone's favorite)
-Yellow cake with orange cream filling

Here's a photo of the Gala in action! All the volunteers worked hard while guests began to check-in:

Oh, did I mention that the president of UF came??? Oh yes, here is Deborah posing with Chris & Bernie Machen!

Our jazz band:

Here is a photo of me, Nicole, and Elise hanging out by the silent auction:

This is Edith Perez (a pioneer in TNCB research and our keynote speaker) and Lisa (the president of CSCRB)

Me, Elise, and Michelle (both the Gator Gala and the 5K were done in her mother's honor). During the Gala, Michelle gave a beautiful speech, and I don't think there was a dry eye in the crowd.

In honor of the Gator Gala, I'm giving away this great book Cancer Vixen! It's a graphic novel, meaning it's written in comic strip format, and it's a really good read! I won it at the Gala's silent auction and thoroughly enjoyed reading it, but now I want to pass it on so someone else can read it!

Everyone has been affected by cancer in one way or another - whether you've had it yourself or you know someone who has. To be entered in the drawing, leave a comment about how cancer has touched your life - or just say hi! I'm going to the ICES convention next week (woohoo!) so this contest will run until August 3rd. For those of you having trouble leaving comments, just click the link that says how many comments have been left for this post (underneath this post). A pop-up window should come up allowing you to leave a comment!

Congratulations to Our Second Contest Winner

Congratulations to Sue for winning an delicious bag of M&Ms! Thanks to both of my faithful blog followers for attempting the quiz. haha! You each had a 50% chance at winning the prize - way to go!

Update: The Gator Gala was a success! My cake had a few humidity-related problems, but everyone still seemed impressed. Stay tuned for the full story!

Contest #2

This week's contest will be a blog scavenger hunt of sorts. Leave a comment with your answers to the questions. The comments will be hidden until the contest ends on Friday, July 17th at 5pm. Everyone who gets all 3 answers will be entered in a drawing to win a FREE bag of M&Ms! Yay! Who doesn't love M&Ms?!

1. What band was featured on my birthday cake this year? Hint: My birthday is in March.
2. What was the title of my very first post on this blog?
3. What kind of dog do we think Nani is? Hint: Look in June 2009.

Good luck!!

Pirate Cupcakes

This Saturday, I did a demo at Michael's to celebrate the release of the new Wilton Yearbook! Pirates are in this year so I made some cute little pirate cupcakes.


But the fun doesn't stop there! Look at the center of the cupcakes! So fun!


I'm just DYING for someone to ask me to do a wedding cake like this! Can you imagine? A beautiful, traditional wedding cake...then the bride and groom cut the cake...and behold! It's hot pink!

Oooooh, this will also be great for sports team...an orange and blue Gators cake anyone???

Contest Winner!

Congratulations, Elise! Your M&Ms are on the way!

That is my hubby, Adam! Can you believe it?! His parents and I have been trying for year to convince him to grow his hair out like that again. He'll have none of that!

I had a lot of fun with this contest so I decided that I'm going to have a contest every week for the months of July and August. In the future, though, everyone who comments with the correct answer will have a chance at the prize! I'll put all the correct answers in a hat and draw one at random. I'll post the new contest on Sunday or Monday of each week - be on the look-out - and he winners will be announced every Friday! Good luck!

Mystery Cutie

Who could this cutie patootie be??? To the first person who comments with the correct answer, you get a FREE bag of M&Ms!

Ready????

GO!