Technique
Chocolate Stencil Technique: Leaves, Transfers, Airbrush
With a stencil, you can work with chocolate, cocoa butter, airbrush paint, and velvet spray. We will start with chocolate leaves: they make it easy to see how working with a stencil is set up. Then we will look at how a design transfers from film onto a leaf, and what to use when you want to draw directly on a cake.
Chocolate Leaves, Flowers, and Butterflies
Do not let the stencil scare you—you can make one at home. Take a piece of cardboard, draw a leaf, and carefully cut it out with a craft knife. Plastic stencils we make for ourselves and for production have a fixed thickness. Whatever the thickness of the plastic, that is the thickness of the chocolate.
The stencil needs a tab. When you lift it, you need something to hold; you cannot get a grip on smooth plastic with your fingers. With our stencils, the tab simply bends over. Make the same kind of tab on a cardboard stencil yourself.
I melt chocolate to 40°C and, if I need a color, color it right away, before tempering. This matters. If you temper the chocolate, then add color and start stirring it in, you will seize the chocolate — too much stirring makes it less fluid. That is bad.
Use an oil-soluble color. Forget gel colors for chocolate—just forget them. Gel colors are water-based, and water is always bad for chocolate unless you are making ganache or mousse.
At the same time, you do not want completely fluid chocolate for a stencil. On the webinar we used four-drop couverture: it is not too fluid, holds its thickness, and does not spread across the stencil. Five-drop chocolates are already very fluid.
I place a chocolate transfer sheet or a clean sheet of film, put the stencil on top, and pour chocolate into two spots: a little at the beginning and a little in the middle. Why two? The stencil widens farther along, and the second portion compensates for that widening.
I hold the stencil by the tab, place the spatula, and move outward. Use a spatula slightly wider than the stencil so the chocolate does not run over the edge. I find an 18–20 cm spatula convenient; at home, it is useful to have one 15–18 cm wide and one larger.
I return excess chocolate to the bowl immediately, starting at the rim. If the room is cool, it will set quickly at the rim, so I warm it slightly and let it slide down into the main mass. Do not leave it on the edge of the bowl: it will set and later fall into the chocolate in pieces.
Lift the stencil so the film stays in place. With one finger I press down the edge of the stencil, with the other hand I take it by the tab, and with my lower fingers I brace against the film. I pull with two fingers and hold it down with three. If you do not want to hold the film at all, tape it to the table or spray a little alcohol underneath it.
Do not collect chocolate scraps around the leaves right away. They will set, and you can remove them without hurrying, melt them, and use them. It comes out cleaner than trying to collect everything now.
Because they are thin, finished leaves curl a little on their own, which makes them look even more natural—exactly what we need. If you need them flat, as soon as the chocolate starts turning matte, cover it with a second acetate sheet and place a cutting board on top. Do not press; simply put it there. These leaves will come out flat and glossy on both sides.
Chocolate repeats the surface it touches. The side that lay against the film will be shiny, while the upper side will remain matte and satin-like. Besides leaves, this is how you make little flowers, butterflies, drops, and individual petals, such as cherry blossoms.
Pay attention to the room temperature. In the lesson, my room was almost 24°C, and that is not the best temperature for chocolate; around 22°C would be better. In a warm room, chocolate takes longer to stabilize, so allow more time.
If you need a finished piece to place on a cake, see my breakdown of a chocolate stencil appliqué.
Cocoa Butter: A Design That Transfers to Chocolate
To put a design on a leaf, I place the stencil not on an empty sheet of film but on a chocolate transfer sheet. This is a film with a design already applied in cocoa butter; mine was made using screen printing. I cut the chocolate transfer sheets to the size of the stencil in advance so the picture lands under all the leaves.
Colored cocoa butter can also be applied to the film by hand, with a brush. But first, it needs to be tempered.
You can also have a chocolate transfer sheet printed at a cake-decorating supply shop. Keep in mind, though: it will contain water-soluble color, not cocoa butter. If the cake is exposed to condensation, that paint may run. Cocoa butter will not.
Before pouring the chocolate, check which side of the film the cocoa butter is on. Sometimes you make candies, remove the films, and there is no design. It stayed on the reverse side, while the candies are smooth and pretty.
See? On dark chocolate, the design shows well if it includes white.
A Design Directly on the Cake: Airbrush and Velvet Spray
Leaves are made separately and then placed on the cake. If the design needs to be right on the coating, use an airbrush or velvet spray.
For the airbrush, we have round and oval stencils. They are a slightly different thickness, and the designs on them are smaller. They are convenient to place against the side of a cake, for example one covered with ganache, and apply color in layers.
Velvet can also be applied through a stencil. On the webinar we showed a cake-side film with a “Happy Birthday” inscription. It is generally meant for a chocolate border, but you can place it against a velvet-coated cake, apply the velvet, and remove it. The inscription will remain on the cake. Apply the film with the correct side facing the cake, so the inscription does not come out mirrored.
Questions and Answers
Can I write with ganache through a stencil?
We showed a stencil on a ganache-covered cake. The ganache was the base there, and the design was applied with airbrush paint.
Can I draw through a stencil with melted chocolate?
Melted chocolate is not ready for work yet. I melt it to 40°C, add color if needed, and only then temper it. For a stencil, we use chocolate that is not the most fluid, so it holds its thickness.
Will chocolate tempered in a piping bag work?
For thin decoration on the side and stencil work—no. It is dense and viscous: it is good for gluing pieces, shaping tails and little beaks on birds, and working with relief molds.