Ruffled Flower Cupcake Toppers

As I was perusing the web I stumbled upon these adorable cupcakes toppers from Jessicakes Blog.  Once I saw these I had to try them, they were just so cute.

For my first attempt everything was going fine until I got a couple splashes of water in my Candy Melts as they were melting, I've heard this is a BIG NO NO, well turns out it's very true.  Once I poured the chocolate out to cool it turned into a rock.  I think I might have strained a neck muscle trying to roll it out, I gave up after seven flowers. The ones I  were able to make were also very brittle and cracked easily.

For my second attempt, I was tasked to make them for an engagement party so I had to make sure I got them right.  I was very careful when melting the chocolate to make sure that no water made its way in and let me tell you, it made all the difference.  I also poured the chocolate out very thin on the wax paper so that it would be easier to roll out.  After taking all those precautions the chocolate was much easier to roll out and I was able to get 16 flowers out of one batch.  It was a success! One great tip Jessicakes had for better presentation was to brush the completed flowers with vodka to clean of the left over cornstarch, it totally works and you can't taste the alcohol after.  I took a before picture of my second attempt but completely forgot to take an after picture so I've included an after picture from my first attempt that shows them all cleaned off.

Ready to be formed

Completed flowers before clean up

First attempt

To make modeling chocolate or candy clay you first melt one bag (14 ounces) of Wilton Candy Melts and then mix in 1/3 cup light corn syrup until until it's fully incorporated.  This may take awhile and your chocolate will seem kind of watery for a bit but after some stirring it will go away and you'll have a nice "ball" of chocolate that you can pour out onto wax paper to cool.  I let my cool overnight before I used it but you could probably use it after it's gotten to room temperature.