Catholic Recipe: Chocolate Symbols for Cake Decorations

Hearts and stars are used as symbols for many of the saints. On their feastdays you might like to try cake magic made possible by semi-sweet chocolate morsels. Very little work or added ingredients are needed to make expert decorations. It does require time to do the work successfully, though. Semi-sweet chocolate morsels are the same little pieces of chocolate that are used to make authentic chocolate chip cookies, just as they originated at the Toll House in Whitman, Massachusetts.

We give instructions here for hearts, but the recipe can be used with different cookie cutters also. You will find cut-out hearts of semi-sweet chocolate easy to make for your child's cake. In no more time than it takes to translate hope into reality, you will have a jaunty little row of chocolate silhouette hearts.

Made with only two ingredients, the chocolate morsels and shortening, these hearts require only metal cookie cutters with a good cutting edge and a length of aluminum foil. You will have enough chocolate hearts from this recipe to decorate a big pink-frosted cake, and an auxiliary flotilla of cupcakes.

DIRECTIONS

To make semi-sweet chocolate heart cakes, have ready two 9-inch cake layers and twenty medium cupcakes. (The cake pans also come in a heart shape.) For the frosting prepare one and a half times the recipe for a standard butter frosting. For St. Valentine's day you might tint pale pink with one or two drops of red food coloring. Frost the sides and tops of the 9-inch layers and the cupcakes.

Combine and melt over hot (not boiling) water 1 cup (6-ounce package) of semi-sweet chocolate morsels and 2 tablespoons of vegetable shortening. Spread evenly with the back of a spoon in a 15 x 10 pan lined with aluminum foil. Chill until firm, approximately 20 minutes. Invert carefully on a 15 x 12 cookie sheet lined with waxed paper. Gently peel off the foil. Using a heart-shaped cookie cutter, 2 inches across at the widest point, cut 32 hearts (reverse direction of every other heart). Then with a cutter 21/2 inches across at its widest point cut 4 hearts (reverse direction). Rechill until firm enough to handle, approximately 5 minutes.

To decorate, place 4 large hearts on top of the frosted layer cake. Place twelve small hearts around the side of the layer cake. Put 1 small heart on each cupcake.