From ganache and lattice to piped fish, chocolate portraits, sculpted animals and a 3D chocolate train.
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Chocolate is the most forgiving and the most versatile medium in the cake decorator’s kit, and this pathway takes you from a bowl of melted chocolate all the way to a full sculpted showpiece. You will begin with ganache — how to make it, how to judge its condition for different jobs and how to use it well — then move into flat cut decorations, simple chocolate flowers, neat lattice work and piped chocolate shapes, all quick, inexpensive pieces you can store and reach for whenever a cake needs dressing.
From there the projects grow in ambition. You will build a vintage plane from melted dark compound chocolate, cut and compose an abstract centrepiece from flat shapes, and pipe a freestanding goldfish scene complete with branches, coral and starfish. Next comes Serdar’s unique method for creating lifelike portraits with chocolate, followed by a moulded and assembled Easter bunny centrepiece with palm trees and rocks, and a realistic running horse sculpted from margarine modified to look like chocolate. The journey finishes with a 3D chocolate steam train, panels, wheels, rails and all.
It suits hobby decorators who already coat a cake comfortably, and professionals wanting elegant decorations that cost little and travel well. By the end you will be able to dress the sides and top of any cake with confident chocolate work, sculpt and pipe three-dimensional pieces, and build freestanding centrepieces that need no cake underneath them at all.
