Rudolph Heads

We had a lovely morning thinking about and making seasonal chocolate snacks.  More to follow in a later post... but, for now, here's our idea for an intricate but fun Rudolph-styled chocolate. 

First of all, we started by melting some white and milk chocolate chips in small plastic bags.  Once the chocolate was melted, a corner of the bag was cut and the chocolate was 'piped' onto some baking parchment in antler shapes.  These were then put in the fridge to chill and set.

At this point, it's worth mentioning that the white chocolate antlers were far from successful so we were not hopeful of a positive outcome when trying to use them!

Whilst the antlers were setting, we took a chocolate log chocolate truffle (ours were pre-packed Alpinis from Thornton's which state 'no gluten containing ingredients' but realise the cross contamination risk may be too great for coeliacs) and put a small dab of chocolate on one end.  We then placed a small, red sugar decoration on the chocolate to serve as Rudolph's nose.

Next was the tricky task of antler attachment.  Placing the truffle log on end, a generous blob of chocolate was put on the end and two, now solid, chocolate antlers were attached.

Adding some silver balls as eyes, using dabs of chocolate as glue, we had created our Rudolphs.

We won't suggest this is anything other than a fiddly undertaking but Sous Chef J had fun and we were both pleased with the results!

They'd make a lovely gift or sweet treat with a coffee or cuppa.

Rudolph Cupcakes

Feeling in festive mood we decided to make an attempt at some cupcake decorating.

To get started we made a batch of Dove's Farm victoria sponge cake (our blog about this is here) This mix was then divided between 12 bun cases and baked at 170ºC for about 15-20 minutes.   Once the cakes had cooled thoroughly, they were topped with some chocolate icing.  

Then, some antlers were prepared by cutting curly wurly bars.


Then the decorating began - we used chocolate vermicelli and other suitable cake decorations to create our Rudolphs.

We made some with our visitors and then they were given a special (recycled) pot to take their creations home with them!

It was a lovely activity that, with a little forward planning, resulted in some pretty handsome looking Rudolph cakes!