A few weeks ago I received a box of sprinkles from Happy Sprinkles and inside they had kindly sent me a small heart mould. As soon as I saw the mould I knew exactly how I wanted to use it. So this week I’ve created a tutorial to show you how to make a cake that looks like a box of chocolates. I’ll also be using some of their pretty Valentine’s sprinkles on the chocolates too. (Scroll down for a 10% off code for the sprinkles)
This would be the perfect cake for Valentine’s day or for someone’s birthday. I hope you enjoy the tutorial!
Click below to watch how to make the chocolate box cake ⇩
The Mould & Sprinkles
I have to start by talking about the mould and sprinkles that inspired this cake. The silicone mould gives these cute little hearts which measure around 1 inch across. The chocolates were so easy to make. I tempered down some milk chocolate and filled the mould, but you could use any coloured chocolate or also create shells and fill with ganache or caramel. I then used 3 of the tubs from Happy Sprinkles Valentine’s collection to cover one corner. These gave the perfect chocolates to add into my chocolate box.
The sprinkles I used were the Love Strands, Be Mine and Love Birds.
If you want to get your hands on some Happy Sprinkles they have also kindly given me a 10% off discount code for me to share with you.
To receive 10% off Happy Sprinkles all you need to do is visit their website www.happysprinkles.com or The Cake Decorating Company and enter the code HAPPYLYNZ10 at the checkout! (This code can not be combined with any other discounts)
Tempering Your Chocolate
For my chocolates I used 200g of milk chocolate. Now if you’re new to working with chocolate unlike candy melts you will need to temper your chocolate before you add it into your moulds. Tempering is what gives chocolate its glossy finish. If you don’t temper your chocolate it can bloom giving you little white dots over the surface. It also becomes very soft and will melt in your hands. Untempered chocolate is also so hard to get out of the moulds.
The chocolate I was using was ordinary milk chocolate from the supermarket (I used Sainsburys). I cut my bar into smaller chunks and held back a third of the chocolate. The rest I put into a glass bowl and poped this into the microwave. You can also do this over a saucepan of hot water (just make sure none of the water gets into the chocolate). My microwave is 800w and I added my chocolate for 3 intervals of 30 seconds, stirring each time. You want to stop when your chocolate reaches a temperature of around 45 – 50°C , even if there are still a few pieces of chocolate unmelted.
Then stir the chocolate until all the pieces are melted and start adding a few of the pieces you held back. Stirring these through until they have melted and adding some more. What we are doing is cooling the chocolate with unmelted pieces until the temperature gets down to around 28 -30°C. You chocolate is then tempered for you to use in your mould.
For Dark chocolate heat to between 57 – 58°C then cool down to 29 – 32°C
For White Chocolate heat to around 40 – 43°C then cool down to 26 – 30°C
For Milk Chocolate heat to around 45 – 50°C then cool down to 28 -30°C
The Chocolate Box
To create my chocolate box I used 3 square chocolate cakes which measured around 6 inches across and 1 inch in height. For this I used:
11oz / 312g – Self Raising Flour
12oz/ 340g – Butter
12oz/ 340g – Caster Sugar
4 eggs
30g / 1oz – Cocoa Powder
2tbsp – Milk
Combining all the ingredients in my mixer at the same time and mixing it until I had a smooth mixture. I then baked my 3 cakes 180 degrees Celcius for 35 minutes.
I used 2 layers for the main part of my cake and 1 layer, sitting on a drum board for the lid of my chocolate box. All my cakes were covered in milk chocolate ganache and I used fondant to cover my cake.
Attaching the lid onto the chocolate box
The most important part of this cake is getting the lid to sit against the cake without pushing on the cake itself. Around the sides of the chocolate box the fondant comes higher than the cake, so this isn’t going to take the weight of the lid. In the tutorial you will see I used a strong white dowel against the back of the cake, cut at an angle at the top, so the lid would sit perfectly against the dowel. I then used royal icing to secure the dowel against the cake and more around the base of the lid where it meets the cake board.
It’s important to make sure your dowel is perfectly straight and the royal icing has set before trying to move your cake. I would suggest if you are transporting your cake to add the lid when you get to your venue, this way the movement of the car isn’t going to dislodge the lid. Alternatively for added stability you could also attach that dowel into your cake board with some glue or use a metal dowel and some bolts prior to adding your cake, this way that dowel is fixed and can’t move. Just remember to cover any glue or metal pieces in tin foil to make it food safe.
I had so much fun creating this cake and I really hope you enjoy the tutorial and will be able to use some of the techniques in the tutorial on your own cakes. If you haven’t already you can subscribe to my YouTube channel for more Free cake decorating video tutorials.
Tools I used
I have put a list below showing all the tools that I used throughout this video or if you would like to see all my favourite cake decorating tools just click here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/shop/cakesbylynz
Happy Sprinkles – Love Strands: https://bit.ly/35bjuwZ (Get 10% off with code ‘HAPPYLYNZ10’)
Happy Sprinkles – Be Mine: https://bit.ly/3nLo1wv or https://tidd.ly/3FIx2ws (Get 10% off with code ‘HAPPYLYNZ10’)
Happy Sprinkles – Love Birds: https://bit.ly/3nJZjfO or https://tidd.ly/3tMTPEU (Get 10% off with code ‘HAPPYLYNZ10’)
Happy Sprinkles Heart Mould: https://bit.ly/3fMTKZI
Silverwood Cake Tin: https://tidd.ly/3qLllkr
The Sugar Paste Fondant: https://tidd.ly/3iddg3P
Tylos Powder: https://tidd.ly/3GPrIbT
Metal Smoother Tool: http://amzn.to/2BNjf7v
Piping bags: https://amzn.to/2WdT5dt
Modelling tools: https://amzn.to/2WWfnOR
Edible glue: http://amzn.to/2iYkZXm
Raspberry Colour Splash: https://amzn.to/2XSvYF2
Turntable: UK – https://amzn.to/35u3QJB USA – amzn.to/3wRFaYN
Plastic Smoothers: http://amzn.to/2pPcb96
Squires Kitchen Belissimo Flexi Smoothers: http://amzn.to/2DrVWAy
~ Please note that the links above are affiliate links. If you click the link and purchase any item through that link, I will receive a small commission from the website but this does NOT add any additional costs to you. Thank you so much for supporting this blog x ~
Plus why not save this tutorial for later and pin it to Pinterest
