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Chocolate Sails 5 Ways
33K views
Sep 6, 2024
in this cake decorating tutorial I show how to make chocolate sails 5 ways: traditional sails, baskets, shards, marbled and sprinkle rimmed sails, and textured sails. Click here for my tutorials on marble drips (https://youtu.be/GWzpi4wVsl4) and bubble wrap cakes (https://youtu.be/UUSPlj0_FUY). For my online course on Buttercream Carving, click here: https://britishgirlbakes.teachable.com SUBSCRIBE to my channel for new cake decorating tutorials every week!
View Video Transcript
0:00
Hi, I'm Emily and I'm going to show you how to make chocolate sails, baskets and shards to decorate your cakes
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I'll start with the basics of using semi-sweet chocolate, white chocolate and candy melts to make baskets and sails
0:16
And then show you some fun variations like rainbow marbled sails with sprinkle rims and textured sails
0:24
To make all of these, you'll need parchment paper. For this first example, I'm going to use Wilton candy
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melts, but chocolate works in the same way. To choose the amount I dump a pile on the parchment
0:36
spreading them around to more or less cover the area I want to turn into a decoration. I heat the
0:43
candy melts at 50% power in the microwave for one minute at a time so that I don't overheat them
0:48
and make them seize up. Pour them onto the parchment and spread them around with an offset
0:54
spatula trying to keep the thickness the same all over and lifting your spatula a
0:59
minimum number of times to keep the surface as smooth as possible. Next you can
1:04
choose what shape you want to use while the decoration dries to mould it into
1:08
whatever you like. I'm going to turn this into a basket-shaped decoration by
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placing the parchment paper inside a bowl so that the sides curve up. It's important to
1:19
do this immediately after spreading it so that it hasn't started to set and it won't
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crack when you move it around. It's helpful if your parchment is a bit bigger than the shape
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you've spread, so that you have something to hold onto as you lift and twist the parchment to lower
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it into the bowl or whatever object you're using as a mould. Make sure that different sides of the
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decoration don't touch each other unless you want them to stick together, because if you pull
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them apart you'll damage the smoothness of the surface. You can let the sail dry upside down
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instead by draping it over a glass or bottle or other tall object like this
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You can leave this to set at room temperature for about an hour, depending on the temperature
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and humidity, or you can put it in the fridge for 30 minutes
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Then lift the parchment out of the bowl and gently peel it back from the decoration
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If there are any little lines of chocolate or candy melt sticking up above the edge of the
2:16
decoration, you can break them off with your fingers, or you can dip a sharp knife and
2:21
in hot water and carefully glide the knife along the edge to smooth it out. The way you attach
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the decoration to a cake depends on the surface of the cake. For this one, I've covered it in a
2:33
ganache drip which is still sticky so I can press my decoration gently on top of it to secure it I show you a few different methods with other cakes later in this video To see how to make this marble drip click the link in the top of the screen or it also in the
2:48
description below this video. For chocolate, you'll also need parchment paper, and for this next
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method I'll be using paper clips, and again an offset spatula. Melt the chocolate in the microwave, and 60% power is a safe choice so that you don't make the
3:04
chocolate seeds, and I do one minute at a time. Meanwhile, shape your parchment paper
3:10
I'm folding this piece into a fan shape by creasing it in accordion-style folds
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or scrunching up the parchment and then opening it up gives the decoration some nice movement too
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At this point, the folds or creases are just guidelines for later
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so it's fine if the parchment flattens itself after you've creased it
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If you're enjoying this tutorial, please click the thumbs up button. Now spread the melted chocolate onto the parchment paper
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paper, again trying to keep the thickness the same all over, and gliding your spatula
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from side to side, swiping it off at an angle instead of lifting it straight up, so that
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the chocolate is nice and smooth. Next, use the folds or creases you made earlier to
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reshape the parchment, using paper clips to pin it in place. It's much easier to do
3:59
this if you've already creased the parchment before spreading on the chocolate, since you can't touch much of the parchment now that it's covered with sticky melted chocolate
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Let the chocolate set at room temperature or in the fridge, and then pull off the paper clips and peel the parchment away from the chocolate
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Chocolate is much more fragile than candy melts, so it breaks easily
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especially if you've spread it quite thinly, so it's a good idea to spread chocolate thicker than you think you should
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If your sale breaks, you might be able to use the pieces separate. or if not, you can remelt the parts you don't want, maybe with some extra chocolate, to make another sale
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Semi-sweet chocolate works exactly the same way. Melt the chocolate at 60% power, spread it onto parchment, and shape it in a bowl to make a basket or on a folded piece of parchment
4:57
using paper clips to hold the parchment in its shape. Let it set, and I always do this in the fridge because it's quicker than at room temperature, and I'm impatient to see how the decoration turns out
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Then pull off the paper clips and peel off the parchment. If it difficult to peel it off the chocolate probably hasn completely set so put it back in the fridge for a bit longer and then try again This sail that I put inside a bowl to set is breaking as I peel it from the parchment
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so I'm going to trim the sides and use the middle part, or you could cut it up into smaller
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sails to place in a cluster on the cake. The ganache frosting on this cake has set, so it's not sticky anymore, like the drip
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on the previous cake was. So to attach the sails, I'm piping some ganache rosettes on top of the cake with an 8B piping tip
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and then pressing the sails into the sticky ganache. I'll put the cake back into the fridge to set the rosettes so that the sails are secured into them
6:03
Now for some fun variations, starting with a marbled rainbow sail. I'm using candy melts for this, using rainbow colours, but you could tint white chocolate with gel colours and use that instead if you prefer
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the white chocolate first and then add the gels in small quantities because they're very
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concentrated so you don't need much. I'm using a spoon to press down on the melted
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candy melts to make a paste and then spooning each colour onto a piece of
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parchment and then to marble them I'm first lifting the sides of the parchment and
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jiggling it around to make the candy melt spread out and to thin out the
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coverage and then I'm using the end of a spoon to swim to swing swirl them together slightly. To shape the parchment, instead of paper clips you can
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use clothes pegs, which are bulkier but more secure than paper clips. First I'm
7:00
going to create a sprinkle rim around the sail using these non-pearl sprinkles in rainbow colours. I'm pouring them around the outside of the sail
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trying not to get any in the middle of the sail, and then you can either lift up
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the edges of the parchment paper to make the sprinkles fall down towards the middle of the parchment, where they stick to the edges of the sail, or you can push them towards
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the edges of the sail with your fingers. Before shaping the parchment, I'm pouring the excess
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sprinkles off onto a plate so that they don't roll into the middle of the sail while I'm shaping it
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Now I'm pinching some creases into the parchment and holding them in place with clothespegs
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While chilling the sail in the fridge, I've taken my cake out of the fridge so that it starts to warm up and the frosting and cake soften a bit, which will make it easier to insert my sail
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After taking the clothespegs off the parchment and peeling the sail off I checking both sides to choose my front and then holding it with two hands and pressing it firmly down into the top of the cake This works because the sail is thick and strong so it won snap under the pressure I applying to it
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As a side note, to cut a cake decorated with a sail, just lift the sail off
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and it will probably pull some frosting with it if the cake has been chilled, and then cut the cake as normal. I teach how to decorate this cake with carved mermaid scales
8:29
in my online course the Cake Carving Master Series. And I've put the link for the course in the top of the screen and in the description below this video
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Now for some shards, which I'm going to make with both chocolate and candy melts
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to resemble leaves on a camouflage cake. I'm spooning the melted chocolate onto parchment paper and using the back of the spoon
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to swipe it a few times to thin it out and make it longer. For the candy melts I'm doing exact
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the same thing. I'll chill these so that they set and I've also chilled my cake
9:06
which is important for determining how to attach the shards to the side of the cake. For
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the top, I'm piping some buttercream swells with a 1M tip and then pressing the
9:17
shards in. But for the sides, if the cake had just been frusted and the buttercream was
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still sticky, I could press the shards straight into the sides with a bit of pressure and they
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they would stick. But this camouflage design required chilling the cake, so the frosting has set and isn't sticky anymore
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To attach the shards, I'm piping some buttercream onto the sides to act as glue, and while this
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butter cream is still sticky, I'm pressing the shards against it. The advantage of this method is that
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you can layer the shards, piping butter cream onto a shard to press on another shard to overlap it
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Finally, if you want to imprint a texture into your sails, you can use bubble wrap, which
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you've washed with hot soapy water and dried well, and just spread your chocolate or candy
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melts onto the textured side. Just as with parchment paper, let the chocolate set and then peel it off, and here my cake
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is cold and the sails aren't very thick, so to prevent them breaking as I push them into
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the cake, I'm first cutting a pathway for the sails, drawing a line where I'm going to put
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them in and pressing them gently into that line. To watch the tutorial for how to decorate
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this cake with a bubble wrap design on the sides, click the link in the top of the
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screen or in the description below this video. Thanks for watching! Subscribe to my
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channel to see a new cake decorating tutorial every week
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