The assertion that “the cakes in the store are beautiful, but tasteless, and the home-made cakes are good, they just look so-so,” is a little comfort for unsuccessful confectioners. It is necessary to strive for perfection in everything. Why not compete with the confectioneries in the art of decorating cakes? Recently rose and waves from the cream are already out of fashion. Smudges are in great demand.
It seems that making such a decoration is elementary simple. You only need to water the top surface of the cake so that the chocolate or cream fudge flows from the edges on its sides. But in practice, everything is not very aesthetically pleasing. It turns out either a puddle at the base of the product, or (if you make the fondant too thick) sloppy thick bloopers on top.
In this article we will tell you how to properly pour chocolate with smudges on the cake. On the Internet, you can find many recipes with step-by-step instructions for this technology. And almost all of them are workers. Let's study them all to choose the right one.
Cake preparation
You say that the cakes are baked for a long time, saturated with cognac or syrup and smeared with cream? But for smudges to fall perfectly, you need to prepare the surface of the cake. And not only its top, but also its sides. Surfaces should be as flat and smooth as possible. The slightest bias will lead to the fact that liquid fudge will change the course and flow at all not where you want.
This is followed by the second stage of cake preparation - the primer. Just as an artist, before drawing a picture, applies a thick layer of white paint to the canvas, so the confectioner must cover the surface of the product with glaze or cream. After all, fudge can soak into the dough. As the photos demonstrate, a cake with smudges of chocolate looks best when trickles mostly reach the middle and are placed parallel to each other. Therefore, a perfectly flat surface on the sides of the product is also very important.
The basic principles of creating chocolate smudges on a chocolate cake
Of course, the main thing in this process is the consistency of the glaze. If it is too liquid, then at the top of the product there will be ugly bald spots, and the whole mass will gather at the foot of the cake with a puddle, which will also soak the lower cake. In the case of a too thick glaze, there will be no smudges at all. How to find this fine line in consistency, so that the trickles beautifully, with influxes descend to the middle of the height of the product and stop there?
And here we apply a technology that can be briefly described as follows: “cold surface - hot cream”. Adhering to it, you will not be wondering how to pour chocolate with smudges on the cake - such physical laws as gravity and temperature exchange will do everything for you. Therefore, the cake should be well chilled, and the icing should be hot.
What to make smudges
Needless to say, such trickles may not necessarily be chocolate? Now popular are mousse smudges, caramel, creamy. If we work with chocolate, then you can take bitter black, dessert, milk or white. The main thing is that the tile should be without fillers (nuts, raisins, yogurt pralines). But, depending on what kind of chocolate we choose, the proportions of fudge also change.
It is impossible to indicate the exact amount of cream for making ganache. Therefore, before pouring chocolate cake with smudges, we will experiment on an ordinary glass glass (not faceted, but with smooth sides). To do this, we also put it in the refrigerator. Culinary specialists know several recipes for making fudge for smudges. It:
- chocolate and nonfat cream ganache;
- glaze from butter, milk and cocoa powder;
- from condensed milk, flour and cocoa;
- butter and chocolate meringue.
In fact, there are more recipes. Let's look at the most popular of them.
Ganache
The easiest cake drip recipe is made from chocolate and cream. Such a liquid cream is called ganache. We will need a bar of dark dark chocolate (one hundred grams) and 80 milliliters of low-fat 10 percent cream. If you are a happy owner of a microwave oven, things will argue faster. If not - it does not matter, you can get by with a small fire on the stove. But then you need to take the metal dishes.
- Break the chocolate into pieces, pour the cream.
- We put the bowl on the fire or in the microwave for 30 seconds. It does not matter if the pieces of chocolate melt in the liquid to the end or not. We should not overheat it too much, otherwise it will curdle in cream. It is necessary that the chocolate slowly melted to a homogeneous mass.
- If there are separate pieces, and the cream is already cool, send the bowl to the fire or for ten seconds in the microwave.
- Stir the mass so as not to enrich it with air bubbles. Properly made ganache drains from a spoon with a wide ribbon.
Consistency Test
We do not yet fully know whether we have enough liquid or thick fudge. Therefore, before pouring chocolate cake with smudges, we will experiment on a glass. We take it out of the refrigerator and put it on a flat surface upside down. Scoop fudge with a teaspoon. It can be either ganache or icing. But you should know that watering should not be too hot, because the liquid will not freeze even on very cold glass, and on the cake - so even more so. The optimum temperature is about 35-40 degrees.
We try first on the hand: it should be hot, but not scorching. Now drip onto the glass. We watch how the trickle flowed. If she reaches the bottom of the dishes, we throw some pieces of chocolate into the fondant. The mass gathered on top of a fat blot and does not want to drain anywhere? Add a tablespoon of hot cream, stir. By experimenting like this, we will achieve the perfect consistency. Now you can pour a cake with smudges with such ganache (creamy chocolate).
Mirror Glaze Recipe
Of course, you can simply melt the tile in the microwave and cover it with the top of the product. You can also make smudges. But you get a hard, matte crust of chocolate, which crunches and goes ugly breaks, as soon as you try to cut a piece of cake. Butter, on the other hand, will make the glaze more plastic and, moreover, will give it a mirror shine. To make such a fondant for cute smudges is also very simple.
For a 100 gram bar of dark chocolate, we need 70 grams of butter. Since in this case we do not use cream, we need to think about how to melt the mass. There is nothing to think about putting a bowl of chocolate on the fire. You can melt it in the microwave (30 seconds). But it’s better to do it in a water bath.
- We place a metal bowl with pieces of chocolate on a large container with hot water.
- Stirring, we wait until the heat transfer process turns solid bars into a liquid homogeneous mass.
- Remove the bowl from the water bath and dip the butter sliced in chocolate into the chocolate.
- Stir until smooth. A good hot glaze should also drain from the spoon with a wide ribbon.
- Adjust its consistency with oil.
Glaze coating
Now let's see how beautifully pour chocolate cake with smudges. Mirror glaze, as a rule, cover the entire top of the product. The cake looks gorgeous. In addition, it can be decorated with different figures from mastic. After all, it is known that powdered sugar on chocolate does not melt. The protein cream sits on it just as well. In addition to mastic decorations, you can decorate the sides of the cake with smudges. Baking should be as cold as possible, and the icing should be very warm, almost hot.
The cake needs to be set on a surface that can be rotated. Pour the icing in the middle of the top of the product. With a spatula or spatula, we smooth the fondant, moving it to the edge. We try to let the trickles flow at the same distance from each other and in parallel. You can use a knife for this. We cut small recesses at the same distance, which are destined to become channels for smudges.
Budget fondant option
Expensive chocolate can be replaced with cheap cocoa powder. Since the product is overheated, the difference will not be noticeable.
- A little heat five tablespoons of milk.
- Dissolve in it 4 tbsp. l sugar and 1 tbsp. l butter.
- Stir until all crystals disappear.
- Only after that, carefully pour two tablespoons of cocoa powder. Its quantity can be adjusted depending on what color of fondant - milk or dark chocolate you want to achieve.
- The more cocoa, the brighter the bitterness. Therefore, the amount of sugar must be increased.
How to make smudges on a chocolate cake made in such a cheap way? Technology remains unchanged. The cake should stand in the refrigerator for at least four hours. And fudge should be moderately hot. You can experiment first with a glass to check the consistency of the glaze.
Milk ganache
If you stacked your cake made of dark chocolate cakes, then you can decorate it with contrasting white smudges. They are easy to make, having at hand:
- 70 milliliters of very fat cream (at least 33 percent);
- a tablespoon of sugar;
- 20 grams of cocoa butter and a bar of white chocolate.
- We start cooking ganache by melting cocoa butter in a microwave (2 minutes).
- Now break chocolate there.
- Put in the oven again for 30 seconds. Stir thoroughly until all the pieces are melted.
- Boil the cream, dissolve the sugar in them.
- We add milk mass in four doses to butter-chocolate.
- Stir thoroughly each time to get a smooth emulsion.
- The white smudges on the chocolate cake will look neat and will reach the middle of the height of the product if the cream ganache is cooled to a temperature of 30 degrees.
Color fondant
Food colors give us the opportunity to diversify the decor not only in black and white trickles. We can make them in all colors of the rainbow. Such smudges made of chocolate on a cake with mousse or coated with yogurt cream will look especially beautiful. However, dyes need to be taken appropriate. If they are fat-soluble, we do so.
- Melt a bar of white chocolate.
- Pour 30 grams of refined vegetable oil.
- Stir.
- When the icing cools down to 30 degrees, add food coloring.
- Adjust its amount to get the color of the desired intensity.
If we have the usual food coloring, we act differently. Cooking cream ganache. Cool it, knead the dye.
Only side smudges
It happens that we want to decorate the top of the product somehow differently. Not with glaze, but, for example, cream or mousse. How to pour chocolate cake with smudges so that they are only on the side and do not affect the top of the product? We prepare fondant for streams according to your favorite recipe. But we reduce the amount of all ingredients. Take a spoon and scoop up a small amount of fudge. We drip in the right place and watch how the liquid, instantly solidifying, flows down.
Some chefs use a pouch. But for this you need to fill your hand, because you need to squeeze the bag over a certain distance. Work will argue better if you place the cake on a rotating surface. Now you know how to decorate your culinary masterpiece with delicious smudges.