How to Wrap A Cake With Chocolate

By Elizabeth LaBau, About.com Guide

Have you ever seen a cake wrapped with a seamless band of glossy decorated chocolate, and wondered how this effect was accomplished? This seemingly complicated decorating trick is actually very easy to do, and requires only a few special ingredients. This tutorial will show you how to use transfer sheets to wrap a cake in chocolate and create chocolate cut-outs to decorate the top of your cake. There is an additional tutorial with several different examples of using transfer sheets to decorate cakes, cupcakes, and dipped cookies or candy.

To begin, you will need to assemble several specialty ingredients. First, you will need one or more chocolate transfer sheets, which are acetate sheets embossed with cocoa butter and powdered food coloring. When the wet chocolate is spread on the sheets, the design transfers to the chocolate, producing a lovely visual effect. Chocolate transfer sheets are often sold at cake decorating stores and on the Internet.

You will also need chocolate-flavored candy coating, or molding chocolate. This candy product is flavored like chocolate, but has vegetable or palm oils instead of cocoa butter. You can use tempered chocolate instead, but it is more time-consuming and less predictable. It is wise for beginners to use them with candy coating, a much more reliable substance, to achieve consistently good results. Candy coating is often sold at cake decorating and craft stores, with Wilton Candy Melts being one of the most popular brands. The amount of candy coating needed will vary depending on your project, but you will probably want at least 12 ounces to wrap a small cake.

Finally, you will need an offset metal spatula to easily spread the chocolate in a thin, even layer. You might also want a pastry bag and tips to finish decorating the cake.