White Chocolate

jeannieb3

Has anyone melted white chocolate with a nob of butter for the top of a chocolate cake? Normally I do it with brown. Making a cake for my grandaughters school fete and thought white with a red cross of smarties would be topical. Thanks in advance.

thriftlady_2

I've not had much luck melting white choc,it doesn't seem to behave the way ordinary choc does.

But you could try buttercream icing (one part butter to two parts icing sugar plus a little milk or lemon juice) and then add the smarties.

Thanks for the red cross idea,I've got to do cakes for my school's fete next Sat and I've been asked for a World Cup theme - buttercream and Red smarties it is.

How many packets of smarties do you think I'll need to get enough red ones for 2 doz fairy cakes ?:D

twink

it might be cheaper to buy the writing icing in a tube or make your own with red colouring

thriftlady_2

It might be,thanks

Of course I could just make up some red buttercream and pipe a cross on using a plastic bag with the corner cut off.

jeannieb3

My chocolate cake (Bero) is a family favourite and I always use Smarties or chocolate buttons to decorate. Look for the Smarties when they are on offer and then sort whatever colour theme I'm using. Don't know how many red ones you would need for Fairy Cakes! Guess you would need quite a few if you were putting crosses on them!

twinks idea is a good one, and your buttercream is also worth thinking about. Thanks all for your responses.

hardpressed

You could make a cross out of red licorice (sorry don't know how to spell it) strips or halved strawberries.

recovering_spendaholic

I have melted white chocolate a few times and would advise against adding the butter as it is already quite alot fattier than brown choc, so you won't need it. I microwave it on medium power for about 20 secs at a time until it melts - it looks like it isn't going to melt and then it goes all at once - and goes all gunky if you don't catch it at the right moment. Great idea about the crosses - I think that the licorice idea is good too!

kittiwoz

I remember my parents making my brother a cake which was covered with white chocolate that had a little green food dye in it to make a football pitch cake.

I have found that you can melt plain chocolate in a pan over a low heat but if you use milk chocolate you have to add some butter or it catches. If you're melting milk chocolate without butter it's better to do it in a bowl over a pan of boiling water, which is also what my mum did with the white chocolate for my brother's cake. I don't remember whether she put any butter in it though.

jeannieb3

Well Spendaholic I've done it. Melted beautifully, perhaps a little too much as it kept running down the sides! However I 'tidied' it upa bit and must say it looks very striking (!) with the big red cross on it! I won't tell you how many smartie boxes it took to get the required red ones, they are mingy with them.... I had to open all my stock and put the redless ones in a tupperware container. Think I may have to make a cake frill in the morning, yes, it would have been cheaper to buy one! But I can't wait to see my grandaughters face tomorrow.

jeannieb3

Thriftlady....I would hesitate to put red smartie crosses on your fairy cakes they are so MEAN with the red ones. One tube had only one and the best was five, the average was four. If I were you I would go down the red buttercream route!

sandhabibi

If you went to the pick a mix in woolworths you could mayb pick out more red ones then other colours (with the scoop of course):D