Coloured cocoa butter

I've been interested in using this for quite some time. You see prettily coloured artisan chocolates, but for when we do decorated choccy cakes at school, I've wanted to have a go at achieving that characteristic glossy coloured sheen to see if it's applicable for decorations.

Topping a brownie, red and purple mixed.

First, I had bought the coloured cocoa butter online from a specialty chocolate/cake decorating store. It was around $20 for a 200g bottle (I bought a purple and a red) but it seems to be going a long way and it lasts a long time too. 

After melting in the microwave, it can be brushed, swiped or splattered on the acetate or mould being used. 

I did a lot of trial and error. Errors featured. Guides and instructions are also thin on the ground.

Error 1: not glossy.

This can be from either continuing to smear the cocoa butter as it's starting to set, OR not using good quality couverture chocolate on top of it. Cocoa butter and compound chocolate don't mix, I discovered. One of my tests looked like nail polish that is all chipped off, because it didn't all stick and come off on to the chocolate.

Error 2: not tempering the cocoa butter. If it is "out of temper" it is more likely to stay stuck to the acetate, rather than come off stuck to the chocolate.  I ended up doing a bit of guesswork at tempering after the cocoa butter was melted, by shaking the bottle until it had cooled down. Tempering involves re-forming the crystal structure and motion as it cools helps that to happen. It seemed to work. A thermometer would be more accurate.

After the cocoa butter sets, chocolate needs to be melted and spread onto the set cocoa butter. Then when that's set, peel off the acetate or unmould and voila, coloured chocolate decorations! 

I tried both the purple and the red cocoa butter with milk chocolate. I cut rectangles to top my eclairs. (French patisserie day at school).

 

My favourite was the mixture of red and purple with the white chocolate (to decorate a brownie) as the colours come out more brightly. 

It has been an interesting experiment but overall, it's pretty temperamental and I'm not sure that I'm a convert. Using it with an airbrush would be fun to try though...

BUT there's always an advantage to working with chocolate: if it doesn't work out, simply eat and destroy the evidence!!!