Chocolate Portraits
The Advanced Chocolate Method

 

For those not familiar with my “Chocolate Method” it is a decorative technique that uses melted chocolate as its medium.  The melted chocolate is piped and painted onto parchment paper or cellophane. Images are built in reverse, starting with the details like lines, highlights and shadows, followed by the background. The design, once hard, is flipped revealing the flat decorated surface.  

When choosing a portrait to make in chocolate I have a few recommendations. Black and White images are often easier to work from.  The photograph should have good contrast and a range of values from white to black. If the image is washed out or blurry it can be more difficult to copy.  Photo copying a photograph can enhance shadows and contrast, often eliminating unnecessary shadows and making the important ones more prominent.  This simplification and abstraction of the image can be helpful to some.

Adding color adds an additional element of difficulty.  I recommend keeping the colors as simple as possible. In addition, mix the colors a shade lighter than they appear in the photograph, skin tones in particular.  For light skin I generally use small amounts of orange candy color for tinting.  For olive skin I start with the orange base and add small amounts of green, yellow, or chocolate.  For brown skin tones, start with melted white chocolate and add dark chocolate – this alone is usually to dull so I recommend adding orange to give the tone vibrancy.  Usually all of the shading, regardless of the skin tone, is done with painted dark chocolate.  Highlights can be painted using thin layers of a lighter version of the base skin tone or white. Blush tones can be added to cheeks, but if the color is too bright it can look tacky or if the brush work is not smooth the skin can have a ruddy appearance. 

A chocolate portrait has 4 main steps (see How To for details). Start by tracing the head outline and visible lines in the face with a very fine line of dark chocolate.  After all of the linear work is done paint in the shadows.  Painting with chocolate, especially if you are used to painting with other mediums like watercolor or oil, will take some getting used to.  Try to paint each shadow in one fluid stroke.  Using cross hatch or moving the brush around too much or too slowly creates a dirty/ruddy look. Once the initial layer of shadows is in place the photograph becomes obscured.  Remove the photograph from under your cellophane.  Now start to layer shadows and darken the image as needed by referring to the original. 

There is a fine line between too much shadowing and too little. Too much and the face can look overworked, muddy, or choppy, too little and it lacks definition. I recommend keeping it simple but this does not mean omitting key shadows.  Certain shadows, like the one that often appears below the lower lip, give facial structure. The shadow near the bridge of the nose adds depth to the eye socket.  And shadows on the neck help to define the jaw line.

When I teach students how to paint chocolate shadows on a portrait I encourage them to turn the image upside down – this abstracts the face and prevents us from over thinking what a face “should” look like.    Our minds often overpower us and make us paint or pipe lines that are not there- one common thing to do is to draw a line around the eye.  Sometimes there is a line but often it is not visible in the photograph; instead it may be a spattering of lashes or a deep shadow on top.  The biggest challenge is to think of what you are painting as a grouping of lights and darks, not a face.

For additional examples of working with chocolate and the Chocolate Method (One Color, Multi Color, Advanced, and Relief) please refer to The Whimsical Bakehouse - Fun to Make Cakes that Taste as Good as They Look. 
My thanks to Frank Delia for the wonderful photograph I use in this chocolate portrait.

Common Questions

1) How do you make cellophane pastry bags?

At the Bakehouse we like to make our small pastry cones out of cellophane instead of parchment paper because they maintain a clean, sharp point as you work.  Parchment paper cones work well, but overtime, especially if you want a fine line, will disintegrate and not hold their shape well.  We buy 1.25 ml thick cellophane in precut 10”x10” and 12”x12” squares from our paper supplier.  A link to a cellophane purveying website will follow.    If you don’t want to buy this product on the web, you can buy cellophane by the roll at craft stores (the kind you wrap baskets or gifts in). 

Cut the square cellophane in half diagonally. With the hypotenuse, or longest side, of the triangle facing up, hold each of the two acute-angled points separately between your thumb and forefingers. First curl the top right point downward, wrapping under itself until it lines up with the left side of the right angle. Hold this in place while you wrap the top left point down and around the back of the pastry cone until it lines up with the right side of the right angle. Adjust the cellophane with your thumbs inside and your pointer fingers outside until a sharp point forms. Tape close to the base to maintain the cone shape. You can reinforce with more tape at the midsection and top.  Watch the following webisodes to see how I make a pastry cone: howdini.com OR bettycrocker.com.

2) Why do my chocolate decorations have air pockets? Why do I see the texture of the piped lines on my chocolate decorations?

A “Chocolate Method” decoration is supposed to be smooth and flat on the flipped and decorated side. If you see the texture of the piped chocolate or excessive air bubbles it may be caused by the chocolate not being in the desired liquid state while you were making the decoration.  

If the chocolate being piped is too cool it acts more like icing, keeping a linear shape. It does not flood into the area being filled or piped like a liquid would.   I recommend having two pastry bags of chocolate. While you are working with one bag have the other bag warming on a heating pad or a sheet pan placed over a pot of barely simmering water.  Switch bags often to insure you are always working with warm chocolate.

Chocolate is temperamental.  It has to be kept at around body temperature or it begins to set. Confectioner’s chocolate (AKA: wafer chocolate, candy melts, compound chocolate) has a slightly higher melting point - 115 ° F.  Once melted the chocolate is ideally in a near liquid state.  I have found that the white chocolate is the perfect working temperature if it rests on a heating pad a high heat and the dark chocolate prefers a slightly hotter surface like a portable stove top or double boiler.

Keep in mind, if the chocolate gets too hot it can start to bake and get hard and unworkable.  Also if you pipe with very hot chocolate it may remelt other piped chocolate elements as it is piped next to or on top of them. This can cause the other chocolates details to blur or melt into each other.

In addition to maintaining a good temperature range, other factors may affect the way chocolate pipes.  If water or water-based food coloring is mixed with the melted chocolate it will seize. Basically it will get lumpy, thick, and unworkable. Humidity also affects the way chocolate melts.  If your chocolate was exposed to excessive or prolonged humid conditions, you may have difficulty melting it, instead it will seize.  If the seizing is not severe, you can counteract it by whisking a few drops of vegetable oil into the melted chocolate.  Store your chocolate in a cool and dry place.

Another reason textural lines or air bubbles may appear is the size of the hole in the pastry cone.  The larger the area you are trying to fill in the larger the hole in your pastry bag should be.   Keep in mind you don’t want the hole to be so big that you are unable to control the flow of chocolate.   If you try to fill in a larger area using a very small hole the first rows or lines of chocolate you piped may start to set before the other layers are in place.  This creates a lacy effect with many holes.  Try to work as quickly and efficiently as you can without sacrificing quality.

To increase efficiency have all of the chocolate and colored chocolates you will need to complete a design melted, poured into pastry cones, and ready to go.  If you have to stop mid-design to melt chocolate this could affect the quality of your design. 

 

What you will need:

 

How to:  Black and White Portrait

Follow instructions here.

 

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