Mud Bath

I should start by saying I am a tired man. Despite a certain Nailed It quality; I worked hard at these cupcakes.

¶The warm-up

I started the run by making Sweetie Pie. Dark chocolate domes, filled with vanilla marshmallow fluff icing, on top of vanilla sponge.

Next, I made edible prints of one of OfferZen's characters; underneath a transparent edible dome. Isomalt sugar work, a disc of lemon white chocolate, Yuzu marshmallow fluff icing, vanilla sponge.

I based these on this artwork:

¶The finale

For the final cupcake run; I wanted to make something unique for the team. I took inspiration from this artwork:

After brainstorming a few ideas, I settled on the idea of the Dinocorn having a mud bath. To achieve this, I would have to model the head of the Dinocorn out of chocolate, complete with an accurately coloured horn.

This would be positioned on a cupcake, and surrounded by enough brown icing that it would look like the little guy was having a most delightful time. I started out creating what we took to calling Space Sausages:

These were modelling balloons dipped in multiple layers of tempered chocolate; so that they would harden into a hollow rounded cylinder. When these were thick enough, and had set, I popped the balloons and cut them into the rough size I was planning to use. I made 12 for an order of 8, in case some broke.

Next, I rolled and cut circles of white fondant. The cutting wasn't for shape, but rather to ensure they were all the same weight. Fondant is light, and you need a sub-gram scale to accurately measure rough pinches of it. Rolling and cutting is a quicker and easier way to ensure they're much the same, without knowing exactly how much they actually weigh.

I stuck pins through these so that I could hang them from a polystyrene board:

During various rounds of Space Sausage immersion; I melted and coloured small batches of white chocolate (all of the chocolate for these cupcakes were the best Belgium chocolate I could buy, by the way). These batches were matched to the colour of the horn, and hand-painted until all but the last colour could be clearly seen, in the correct order:

Returning to the heads, I wanted to better match the colour; so I airbrushed them:

If I thought I had enjoyed painting the horns, it was nothing compared to how much I enjoyed airbrushing food colouring onto chocolate. I can't believe it took me this long to try in earnest. Once this was dry, I could adhere the horns to the heads with the final colour of melted chocolate:

I turned my attention to icing. Once again, marshmallow fluff icing. The correct name for this is Italian meringue icing. Beat egg whites to soft peaks, bring a sugar syrup to ~115 degrees Celsius, slowly dribble into the eggs while whisking furiously.

I made one batch of this with a Strawberry flavour, and coloured it pink. I made another with a lime flavour and coloured it brown. The pink icing went into the hollow chocolate heads, after having cut them at an angle; while the brown icing went onto the vanilla sponge cakes.

I draw some eyes on the heads, made some fondant arms, and assembled everything.

¶What worked well

This was my first time trying something so ambitious.

• I am glad I made extra heads, because one broke. If I had made them thinner, I would have had many more break. The order was for 8, and I made 12. In the end, I only had 8 that I could use.
• Airbrushing really is a lot easier than I thought. I coated the Space Sausages with white chocolate, but I honestly didn't need to. I could have airbrushed the dark chocolate.
• Gloves are essential when holding chocolate. They prevent finger prints and also insolate the chocolate from hand heat; so you can work longer before the chocolate starts to melt.
• Balloons are great for getting the basic shapes because you can theoretically pop and remove them when the chocolate is set. See; chocolate bowls.

¶What went wrong

• I feel like the heads were too thick. The second dark-chocolate dip was when the heads were still cold from the fridge. I should have let them warm up before the second dip, so that the layer could be thinner. They didn't need the white chocolate layer at all. Dark chocolate is a strong flavour, so I had to offset that much of it with stronger icing flavour. That has down-sides...
• The balloons I used were too thin and the way I used them meant that I couldn't remove them cleanly from the chocolate. I had to cut the Space Sausages and this lead to a lengthily balloon retrieval session for each head. Next time I would use thicker balloons, dip them in such a way that they can shrink and be extracted without breaking or cutting chocolate. Maybe even use a pin to deflate them slower so that they don't tear and get stuck.
• The cakes were too small. I had it in my head that I would have more space. I didn't, and it was nearly a disaster. As it was, I had to re-enforce with toothpicks, which sucks. Regardless of how bit the cakes are next time (and I will definitely steer for muffin-sized cakes, even if they are mostly left behind); I will make the heads much smaller. This run was about aesthetics, not efficiency. The cupcake is just a canvas. Everything special about this cupcake is in the decoration on top.
• The lime icing did not work. I had originally wanted to make chocolate flavoured outer icing; but that icing flopped with minutes to pick-up. Nick was super patient and I could remake that last batch of icing, but I panicked and flavoured it a strong lime instead. This was a mistake. The strong strawberry was a good choice to offset the dark chocolate, but the lime should just have been vanilla or chocolate.
• The horns were rough (physically). They were accurately coloured, but I should have painted them with chocolate that wasn't as cooled, so that it would flow better.
• I need bigger boxes in future. I couldn't close these.

¶In closing

I'm glad I did this. I hope I get more chances like this to improve.