Jewels, Jewels, Jewels

Hello! My name is Stephanie and I have been interested in cake decorating and sugar art for the past 2 years. It started off as a hobby and recently moved into a role at a bakery, and this is my first tutorial. I hope you enjoy it!

For this project, I used jewel molds with two different mediums- chocolate and poured sugar. First, we’ll look at the chocolate:

• Method 1: The minimalist.
  You don’t have a lot of fancy supplies, but you want to give this whole chocolate molding thing a try- this method is for you.
  • Take your melting chocolates, break them up a bit and place them into your mold.
  • Microwave on high for 30 seconds and check in the consistency. You’re looking for a nice evenly melted chocolate- if it’s still lumpy then put it back in for another 10-20 seconds at a time.
  • Using a toothpick, ‘swirl’ the chocolate around to fill to the bottom of the mold, and level off any extra chocolate at the top.
  • Put the mold into the fridge or freezer to set up, and then pop out your completed jewels!

• Method 2: The perfectionist.
  You’re a little bit of a type-A personality. Maybe you like having maximum control over the chocolate at all times, the flexibility to change colors (or use multiple) on a whim, or you don’t want to risk the few potential ‘air bubbles’ involved with the first method, and you’re willing to go through some extra steps and supplies to make it happen- give this method a try!
  • Gather supplies, you will need:
    • Heating pad
    • Cookie sheet
    • Plastic decorator bags- one for each color melting chocolate
    • Angled spatula, toothpick or knife (to level off the top of the mold)
  • Set up your workspace. You’re wondering what the heating pad is for… right? I find that when I’m working with chocolate if I can keep everything a nice even temperature everything goes much more smoothly (pun intended). Set your heating pad on high with your cookie sheet on top and your mold on top of that. This should warm up your whole work area, but not to a dangerously hot sort of level.
  • Melt your chocolate. Put some melting wafers into a decorating bag and push towards the bottom. Microwave on high for 30 seconds at a time. Check your chocolate often, and flip the bag over each time, and mush the chocolate around so that no one spot gets too hot. This is important- as soon as the chocolate starts to be melty, check it every 15 seconds and mush it around each time, or you will end up melting the plastic bag, ruining your chocolate, and making a big mess.
  • Pipe into the mold. Whenever you’re not using your bags of melted chocolate, they should be sitting on your warmed up workspace to keep the chocolate nice and smooth. Cut a hole into the bottom of the bag- not too big or you’ll lose control, but not too small or it will have a tendency to set up too quickly. Start with about 1/8″ and adjust from there as needed.
  • Level off the chocolate. Use whatever you’d like- toothpick, angled spatula, etc. This step can be skipped if you don’t need the jewel to lay really flat, but make sure that you clean up the edges a bit because it’s easier to do and looks better in the end if you do it before the chocolate has set and you remove it from the mold.
  • Allow to cool, and remove from mold. Put it in the freezer or fridge for awhile, and when it’s set just pop it right out. The mold is very flexible so you can bend it as needed, just be careful not to snap one of the pieces in half as you are helping it out. Ta Da! Super cute, no? At this point you could use a little luster dust to add a sparkle, but I like the way they look right from the mold.

     

    Lessons Learned

    You can get great results with either method, in fact, I thought the jewels I made from method 1 were better than those I did with method 2. This is very likely due to the fact that I did not listen to many of my own steps (didn’t have the heating pad, so the chocolate started setting up too soon, and I was re-using bags of chocolate from a past project and many of the holes were too small). If you look closely at the picture you can see the result- tiny air pockets or holes where the chocolate didn’t get to before it hardened.

    If you are using decorating bags, I like to push the chocolate slightly away from the tip before I set down a bag to minimize leaks. You can also save extra chocolate in bags this way and use them again for future projects. Depending on the type of melting chocolate I’m using, if I let the chocolate melt and harden several times it starts to get cloudy or behave funny, so I would recommend against melting way too much chocolate at once. When you are microwaving bags of re-hardened chocolate, pay even closer attention to any ‘hot spots’ that might develop- really mush it around and flip the bag over often, and keep pushing the chocolate away from your open tip, too!

Some Things

Something that makes me sad: Row houses without neighbors. Not only do they look ridiculous all hanging out there on their own, skinny with windowless sides, but it typically means some tragedy has befallen their former friends.  Did they burn down? Were they abandoned for being structurally unsound? What does this mean for the future of the lone row house?!

Something that makes me laugh: Posts on Craig’s List that indicate a preference to meet in a public place as opposed to at the poster’s home, while at the same time giving out their LISTED phone number.  Have they just never heard of reverse look-up?

Something that makes me eat more than I should: Fruit Dip.  There are lots of different kinds, and actually, I suppose to be completely correct I would have to include fruit to go with said dip.  Recently I had the extreme pleasure of overindulging in a particular fruit dip that I’m told was very easy to make- half cream cheese, half marshmallow fluff.  It tasted sort of like what you’d imagine ‘amazing on a stick’ would be like, except instead of a stick, it came with a strawberry. I’m pretty sure I’d still like it even if it was just on a stick…

Consider yourself warned.

We usually get whatever cereal is on sale.  This week, it happened to be some sort of all-bran with strawberries. Delicious, yes. But also apparently dangerous enough to come with this specific label, in bright yellow, below the nutrition facts:

New Users: Increase your fiber intake gradually.  Intestinal gas may occur until your body adjusts. If digestive pain occurs consult your doctor and avoid laxatives.

Como te echo de menos…

Smoothies with bananas make me think of you.  And how I almost poisoned you on your birthday when I put banana pudding in your 7 tier cake.

Remember that time we developed an elaborate unit-of-affection scale instead of studying for our Physics exam? Or that time we pretended to be statues on the steps of the library in Madrid?

I do.

Cookie Conspiracy?

I was reading this post and was reminded of another cookie often served with tea of coffee…Biscotti.

As the article states, they are rather hard, which has led some in my family to the belief that they must have first been made by the wives of Italian dentists as a last resort for getting customers into the chair during tough financial times.  I have to admit… it’s an intriguing theory… nutty and delicious, just like the cookie it incriminates.

First Class

We took a trip out to California this past weekend, flying standby at the last minute.  I was worried, at first, of embarking on a weekend trip that might turn out to be a longer than desired stay pending a big spike in passengers for the return flights, but it ended up working out just fine.

I have to say it is hard to be back in the cold Midwest after a weekend of fabulous west coast sunshine.  The entire trip was just lovely, but if asked to pick out highlights, my short list would definitely include our flight out. Standby is always a gamble… but sometimes they payoffs are high.

We ended up with seats in the first class cabin of a huge plane.  4 hours was not enough time to explore all the buttons, gadgets, and seat adjustments available.  Certainly not when you added up the 9 channels of video selection and 14 channels of music available with what I am pretty sure were noise cancelling headphones.  Did I mention there was an actual MEAL served? With real silverware?  For my beverage selection I chose half cranberry juice, half ginger ale, and not only was this not a problem, but it was served in a chilled glass, and refilled automatically!!

If only it didn’t cost more than twice the economy fare… I would definitely fly first class again…

comedy of errors

It’s been a long week.

We closed on a house on Monday, moved in on Wednesday, cleaned at the old place on Thursday.  Internet will be awhile getting set up, which means I get to go into the office.  On top of finding the worst possible route this morning, I also failed to bring an ethernet cable which meant I got to wander around looking for one to borrow/steal for the day.  Then, just as I thought the day might be looking up, I decided to get some hot chocolate.  The vending machine had other plans. As I watched the last of my frothy chocolatey beverage slide down the drain, I wondered why the machine wasn’t smart enough to know it was out of cups.  Perhaps it was TOO smart, and decided to play some sort of horrible joke on me.  In any case, at least it is Friday.

The end of the week is (mercifully) nearly upon us.

**EDIT**
Apparently they don’t refill these vending machines over the weekend. Le sigh indeed.

If I had a super power…

I’ve never before had a very good answer to the question “If you had a super power, what would it be?” until now.  It came to me quite suddenly as Katharine and I made the drive back home from our fabulous girl’s weekend with Karen.  (The meatloaf cupcakes did NOT disappoint.)  If I could chose any super power, it would be this: The power to impart truth by bonking people on the head.

I can see myself just wandering around the world, encountering all types of people with questions, with hurts, with misunderstandings in their life, even lots of people who thought they had their lives all together and that they were happy, and with a simple bonk on the head they would go off, entirely changed for the better, ready to lead a far happier life, enlightened by truth, perhaps completely shocked that they had gone so long not even realizing how miserable they had been in comparison.

BONK high fructose corn syrup is killing you slowly

BONK the 85 Bears ARE the best football team of all time

BONK your boyfriend doesn’t respect you

As awesome as this power would be, and as helpful as it would be for those I encountered, I have to be honest, it is a selfish power.  I only want to be able to bonk truth into people because I seem to have such a hard time sharing truth with anyone in a non-super-power way.  It literally pains me to see people I care about living in a state of denial, or just with a clearly flawed vision of life, and to seemingly not be able to say ANYTHING to lead them to the realization that there is a better way of doing things.  Sometimes people just have to make their own mistakes, I guess, but it’s still hard to watch someone you care about make the same mistake you’ve made in the past and know that you’re helpless to stop the inevitable hurt they will encounter.

BONK you can’t make someone learn something they don’t want to know

Everybody’s working for the weekend.

picnic set… check
sewing machine/materials… check
directions and state atlas… check
running stuff…check
things I’m supposed to deliver to people… check
desire for a weekend with just two of my favorite people doing whatever we feel like at the time including but not limited to drinking tea on a porch, picnicking with wine purchased on a wine tour, and eating a meal comprised entirely of things in cupcake form… CHECK.

Let’s do this.

I hate it when TV is right.

I watch TV so I can turn off my brain for an hour. Usually it works out pretty well, even though I tend to watch the kinds of shows that are supposed to ‘make you think’. Yesterday insight came from a most unlikely source: King of the Hill.

In the particular episode my tivo chose to record for me, Hank meets a guy named Hal at a gas station who is, well he’s pretty much like a long lost twin.  Same truck, same style clothes, they even both had glasses.  They end up going out for a drink, and have this huge connection. (They are both sitting there and every now and then one of them goes ‘yep’ but apparently Hank was having the time of his life.)  So you’re thinking (along with the rest of America and to the chagrin of Hank’s neighbors who he ditches out on beers in the alley with) they’re new BFFs.

Anyhow, the point of the episode is that his new friend, no matter how much fun it was to spend time with him, couldn’t compete with his old buddies on one huge point: he wasn’t Hank’s neighbor.  Seeing each other meant at least a 20 minute drive (at one point they actually timed it- met half way at 19 minutes for Hank, 18 for Hal) and with only an hour for lunch… well, the relationship trailed off.

It didn’t hit me until later last night how huge this was.  I’m sure you’ve all got plenty of friends, but do you all have neighbors?  How does one go about finding them if you don’t have built-in neighbors in the form of fabulous room mates?

I could really use a few people to stand in the alley with drinking beer.