Twelve days of sweet designs, day 4 – Chocolate Reindeer Lollipops

In the past two days, I’ve made and packaged over 40 pounds of assorted chocolate barks and 25 pounds of white chocolate popcorn and will be making truffles and dipped pretzels today, but really wanted to finish this post. I’ve been working on it during my breaks from the candy kitchen. Sorry it took a few days to complete and share it with you.One of the most iconic Christmas images is of Santa on his sleigh being pulled by a team of flying reindeer, so I just had to create a reindeer for my modeling chocolate decoration series. For those of you visiting for the first time and for those that haven’t read my first post in this series featuring Christmas Mouse Cookies and the post which inspired this entire series featuring Chocolate Penguin Rice Krispies Treat Pops, you might want to check them out so you know all of the basics about decorating with modeling chocolate/chocolate clay.

I created this reindeer by cutting an egg shape out of milk chocolate clay for the reindeer’s head and hand cut dark chocolate clay antlers. I was sure the dark chocolate clay would stiffen up enough so that the antlers wouldn’t fall over if this design was put on top of an egg shaped sweet. Well, the dark chocolate antlers were stiff enough, but the milk chocolate head was not, and the antlers kept flopping over. I could have just put a reindeer on top of a frosted cake (which I would have had to make) and showed you how that worked for this design, but instead I gabbed a pastry bag and filled it with chocolate which I piped all over the back side of one of the reindeer. I added a stick to create a lollipop.  Voila.

I chose to add a red nose and some highlights in the reindeer’s eyes which meant using white clay as well as dark and milk.  If you don’t want to make all three, just skip the highlights and blend some dark and milk together to create a darker brown nose.  Or make white and dark and blend those two together to make a lighter brown for the reindeer’s head. Of course, you can always just make white (or use fondant) and color it any color you need, if you prefer. Why not try turning the penguin, Christmas mouse, polar bear, or Inuit Children designs into lollipops too?

Reindeer Chocolate Lollipops

Before you begin, if you aren’t experienced with making chocolate, read my chocolate making tutorial which includes information on types of chocolate to use, melting instructions and the recipe for modeling chocolate.

 

Instructions:

Pinch off some white modeling chocolate and color it red. For detailed instructions go here.

• Dust a cutting board lightly with powdered sugar.
• Roll out the milk, dark, red, and white modeling chocolate to 1/16″ of an inch.
• Use the egg cookie cutter to cut out the reindeer heads from the light brown clay, and cut two pointed ovals for each reindeer’s ears either using a cutter or knife.
• Cut one small oval out of red for each nose.
• Use the small end of the #12 round pastry tip to cut two small circles for each of the reindeer’s eyes out of dark. To do this you’ll want to press the pastry tip, tip side down, into the modeling chocolate cutting a small circle, then turn it upside down and tap on counter and the circles will drop out the larger end of the tip. I usually cut a bunch of circles, before turning the tip upside down.
• Pinch the dark circles in between your finger and thumb to shape them into a tear drop for the eyes.
• If using highlights, cut 2 white circles using the #4 pastry tip for each reindeer.Draw antlers on a piece of paper and cut out around them. Use these templates to cut out dark chocolate clay antlers.
• Attach the shapes together using water to create each dear. Ex: use the paint brush to add a very light coating of water on the backside of the nose and press it onto the wider end of the egg. You can see how the ears and antlers are attached in the picture below.
• To make the eyebrows, use a knife or a pointed fondant tool to lightly carve curves above the eyes.

• Pipe chocolate over the backside of the modeling chocolate reindeer and attach a popsicle stick.
• Let harden.
• Store at room temperature in an airtight container. Package in clear cellophane bags.