White Chocolate Plastique Recipes

PLASTIC CHOCOLATE

Steps:

• Melt chocolate in a large metal bowl over a pan of simmering water. Stir occasionally until smooth. Remove from heat, and stir in the corn syrup. The mixture will become sticky, but keep stirring until very well blended.
• Spoon onto a piece of plastic wrap, and wrap tightly. Let stand at room temperature until firm before using. Overnight is best. Use unsweetened cocoa powder on work surfaces to prevent sticking.

WHITE CHOCOLATE PLASTIQUE

Steps:

• Melt the chocolate over in a stainless steel bowl over a saucepan of simmering water, and stir in the corn syrup, then the cornstarch. Allow the mixture to come to room temperature, stirring occasionally. If your room is warm, put the plastique in the refrigerator for 10 minutes or so for it to firm up. If you plan to add food coloring to part of the batch, this is the right time to knead it in. It should come together with the consistency of a pie dough or a slightly melted Tootsie Roll, and it will become more flexible as you work with it. Store the plastique wrapped in plastic or in a sealable plastic bag.

MODELING CHOCOLATE

Steps:

• Melt candy melts in a plastic or microwave-safe bowl in the microwave or stove-top sauce pan.
• Warm corn syrup and add food coloring. Remember that your final product will be lighter than the color of your corn syrup. You can also add color later if you want.
• Fold mixture together with a spatula until mixture starts to seize and resembles soft serve ice cream.
• It is important to not over-mix or your modeling chocolate will get oily.
• Wrap in plastic and let set until chocolate is firm but still pliable. Usually a couple of hours depending on how hot it is in your room.
• Unwrap chocolate and knead until smooth, smashing any hard lumps with your fingers.
• Re-wrap chocolate and place back in plastic wrap to set up until hard.

WHITE CHOCOLATE CANVAS AND CHOCOLATE PAINTS

Steps:

• You can make this "canvas" any size you would like.
• There are two options for making a chocolate canvas. The first one requires a plastic deli tray, on which you pour a 1/4-inch-thick layer of white chocolate (remember, the chocolate canvas will assume any pattern that exists on the tray). Allow it to set, and when it hardens, the chocolate will retract from the sides of the tray. To unmold the canvas, simply overturn the tray, being careful to support the chocolate.
• The second way is to use an offset spatula to spread a 1/4-inch-thick layer of tempered chocolate onto a sheet of parchment paper, being sure to spread it all the way to the edges. Lift the chocolate-covered paper by its corners and move it to a clean space on your work surface. Let the chocolate harden slightly, 4 to 5 minutes. The chocolate will be firm enough to cut but it will not be hard. Use the tip of a sharp paring knife or X-Acto knife to cut a square or rectangular "canvas".
• Paints: Mix cocoa butter with food coloring until it has the viscosity of cooking oil.
• How to Temper Chocolate(From Dessert Circus, Extraordinary Desserts You Can Make At Home by Jacques Torres):
• Chocolate is tempered so that after it has been melted, it retains its gloss and hardens again without becoming chalky and white (that happens when the molecules of fat separate and form on top of the chocolate). There are a variety of ways to temper.
• One of the easiest ways to temper chocolate is to chop it into small pieces and then place it in the microwave for 30 seconds at a time on high power until most of the chocolate is melted. Be very careful not to overheat it. (The temperature of dark chocolate should be between 88 and 90 degrees F, slightly warmer than your bottom lip. It will retain its shape even when mostly melted. White and milk chocolates melt at a temperature approximately 2 degrees F less because of the amount of lactose they contain.) Any remaining lumps will melt in the chocolate's residual heat. Use an immersion blender or whisk to break up the lumps. Usually, chocolate begins to set, or crystallize, along the side of the bowl. As it sets, mix those crystals into the melted chocolate to temper it. A glass bowl retains heat well and keeps the chocolate tempered longer.
• Another way to temper chocolate is called seeding. In this method, add small pieces of unmelted chocolate to melted chocolate. The amount of unmelted chocolate to be added depends on the temperature of the melted chocolate, but is usually 1/4 of the total amount. It is easiest to use an immersion blender for this, or a whisk.
• The classic way to temper chocolate is called tabliering. Two thirds of the melted chocolate is poured onto a marble or another cold work surface. The chocolate is spread out and worked with a spatula until its temperature is approximately 81 degrees F. At this stage, it is thick and begins to set. This tempered chocolate is then added to the remaining non-tempered chocolate and mixed thoroughly until the mass has a completely uniform temperature. If the temperature is still too high, part of the chocolate is worked further on the cold surface until the correct temperature is reached. This is a lot of work, requires a lot of room, and makes a big mess.
• A simple method of checking tempering, is to apply a small quantity of chocolate to a piece of paper or to the point of a knife. If the chocolate has been correctly tempered, it will harden evenly and show a good gloss within a few minutes.

WHITE CHOCOLATE ROSES

Steps:

• Soften the white chocolate plastique so that it is malleable. Knead the mixture on parchment paper as if it were bread dough. It should feel dry to the touch like Play-Doh, and you should be able to mold small chunks of it without it sticking to your fingers. If it is too sticky, you can sift some cornstarch over it to dry it up. Divide the dough into 3 or 4 different disks if you plan to knead in food coloring. To color the plastique, use parchment paper over your work surface and latex or vinyl gloves. Add a few drops of food color to each disk of white chocolate plastique to create different hues for roses and leaves. Knead the color in until it is fully incorporated and you achieve the shade you like.
• For the roses, roll out a disk of the plastique on parchment paper with a rolling pin as if it were a pie dough. Roll it until it is thin, about 1/4 inch. Then, make small circles using the back of a pastry bag tip. If you don't have a pastry bag tip, you can use a bottle top from a milk jug or anything that will cut uniform circles about 1-inch in diameter. Separate the circles (which we will now call "petals") on the parchment paper, and flatten the outer edges of each petal with the back of a spoon to make them almost transparent.
• Peel up the first petal off the parchment paper (a small offset spatula helps with this job) and roll it tight, like a cigar. Pick up the next petal and wrap it around the first one. Each petal should get successively looser and wider, mimicking the way a rose in full bloom opens. You can attach as many petals as you like to create the style of rose bouquet you want. Place each completed rose on a plate covered with parchment paper, wrap the plate with plastic wrap, and put in the refrigerator until you are ready to use them.
• To make leaves to round out your bouquet, add a few drops of green food coloring to a disk of the white chocolate plastique, roll it out thinly as above, then use a paring knife to cut free-form leaf shapes. Once you have completed a number of roses and leaves, you can form a bouquet in a plastic cup that fits inside a flower vase.