Exotic Cat

This was my first cake decorated with chocolate modeling (the cat only). Had long time since I wanted to learn chocolate modeling and this was it.

How to make chocolate modeling?

1 kg cooking chocolate (compound)
300 gr glucose and 25 gr water (mix until completely homogeneous).
Melt the chocolate and then mixed with mixture of glucose and water. Squeeze it until the oil is separated from the solid. Discard the oil and set aside the solid part. Wait until the solid (chocolate) is set or store it in air-conditioned room or even refrigerator to speed up the process. After the solid set and can be formed, then it ready for use.

Before decorated with chocolate modeling, first prepare a cake with desired shape. To form this cat I was inspired from the work of Lindy Smith with step by step which I get from Lindy's blog. You can see it in the link below:
http://www.lindyscakes.co.uk/Blog/2009/05/11/novelty-cat-cake-carving-class/

I was using Mercolade white cooking chocolate, while the red one was using Collata Passionata (Raspberry flavor). The cat's necklace was using some silver pearls that can be eaten. While the whiskers were using 6 small pieces of spaghetti.

Here are some tips for decorating a cake with chocolate modeling:

1. Do not touch the chocolate too often because the chocolate will be soft and sticking.
2. Roll out the chocolate modeling using 2 pieces of plastic (use as a mat and the cover) so the chocolate is not in direct contact with the rolling pin. Previously, sprinkle a little cornstarch evenly in the plastics to prevent sticking. 
3. Cover the cake first with butter cream or ganache with sufficient thickness (approximately 0.5 cm). To obtain a smooth result, it is recommended to store the cake in the refrigerator for a while before cover it with chocolate modeling.