Making a chocolate St Nicholas

Name: Making a chocolate St Nicholas
Prep time: 60 min
Cook time: 60 min
Total time: 120 min
Yield: 1
Cuisine: Switzerland
Ingredients: 300 g Couverture | milk, tempered

Making St Nicholas figures: The perfect guide

If you take a stroll through the supermarket now, you’ll see chocolate moulds everywhere in all sorts of colours, shapes and sizes. St Nicholas figures, in particular, are a must-have at the moment – after all, it’s peak season. However, in the supermarket you’ll only find the classic moulds, and buying your loved ones the same chocolate Father Christmas every year is a bit boring, isn’t it? That’s why we thought we’d show you how to make these chocolate figures yourself. In our online shop, you’ll also find a huge selection of different chocolate moulds. We’ll also explain the difference between fat-soluble powdered colouring and coloured cocoa butter, and show you what you absolutely must bear in mind if you want a perfectly moulded chocolate figure.

What you'll need

Chocolate coating | dark, tempered

Chocolat de couverture | white, tempered

Couverture | milk, tempered

Cocoa butter | liquid, a little

Powder colouring | fat-soluble, red

Polycarbonate mould

Metal scraper

Silicone brush

Cornet

Lindt Couverture White 0.5 kg

Ready-to-ship quantity: more than 20 pieces

CHF19.90

Lindt couverture milk 0.5 kg

Ready-to-ship quantity: more than 20 pieces

CHF17.90

Lindt Couverture Dark 0.5 kg

Ready-to-ship quantity: more than 20 pieces

CHF17.50

Cornet paper ready rolled 15 pieces

Ready-to-ship quantity: 10

CHF6.90

Silicone brush, 20 cm

Ready-to-ship quantity: more than 20 pieces

CHF16.90

Chocolate mold Santa Claus with moose

Ready-to-ship quantity: more than 20 pieces

CHF63.50

Making the St Nicholas figure

The most important thing when casting figures is always to polish the mould really well at the start. This ensures that the finished products have a lovely shine. For polishing, it’s best to use kitchen roll and use it to clean every single part of the mould. Make sure, in particular, that you get right into the recesses so that these are also well polished.

Now fill a piping bag with tempered dark couverture, cut off a small tip and use the chocolate to colour in all the areas that are to be dark. Always remember that the figure has a front and a back. Important: colour in the figure’s pupils first. People often forget that painting a figure like this is based on a layering system, and so they first fill the eye with white couverture and then paint the pupil afterwards. However, this is wrong, as you can no longer see the pupil at all. You build up from the outside in.

Once all areas have been filled with the dark base colour, leave the mould to dry for about 5 minutes. Turn the mould over every now and then to check that you’ve really coloured in all the areas properly, because if not, the colour you use to cast the mould later on will show through. If you’ve done everything correctly, you can move on to the next colour.

Once the mould has been completely painted, you need to leave it to set for about 5 to a maximum of 10 minutes. You can then brush it with the couverture that you’ll ultimately use to pour it. It’s best to use a silicone brush for this and coat the mould completely with the tempered couverture. Again, make sure you reach every corner of the mould.

Info: Dyeing the cover

If you want to dress your St Nicholas in the traditional red coat and hat, you’ll need to use fat-soluble powder paint (paste paint will also work, as long as it’s fat-soluble). To do this, carefully melt the cocoa butter in a bain-marie (no warmer than 40 °C). Depending on the desired intensity, put a small amount of the powdered colouring into a bowl and add a small splash of the liquid cocoa butter. Now mix the two ingredients together until all the colour pigments have dissolved. Finally, mix in the tempered white couverture and stir until you have a smooth, uniform red couverture. You can then pour this chocolate back into a piping bag and use it to decorate your mould. Allow the couverture to set, then brush over it with tempered couverture. The procedure for coloured couverture is exactly the same as for uncoloured couverture.

For beige couverture, simply mix a small amount of milk couverture with white couverture until the desired shade is achieved.

Cocoa butter 250 g

Ready-to-ship quantity: more than 20 pieces

CHF21.50

Powder color for chocolate red, 5g

Ready-to-ship quantity: more than 20 pieces

CHF9.90

Colour Mill Fat Soluble Paste Paint Red, 20 ml

Ready-to-ship quantity: more than 20 pieces

CHF7.40

Once you’ve completely coated your polycarbonate mould with couverture, you can now clean it using a metal scraper. Simply run the horn along the edges of the mould to ensure the edges are smooth and to remove any excess chocolate. This step is very important, as if your mould isn’t cleaned properly, you may encounter difficulties when removing the chocolate figure or end up with unsightly edges.

Lindt couverture milk 2.5 kg

Ready-to-ship quantity: more than 20 pieces

CHF65.80

Sauce spoon 30 cm

Ready-to-ship quantity: 2

CHF11.50

Stirring spatula

Ready-to-ship quantity: more than 20 pieces

CHF6.90

Filling a chocolate mould

Once you’ve thoroughly removed the excess couverture from your mould, you can now assemble it. Attach a clip to each side and one to the top edge. The clips are a bit tricky to attach, but they ensure that the two moulds stay firmly together. Now hold the mould at a slight angle over your tempering machine, use a ladle to help you, and fill the mould completely with the tempered couverture. Now tap the mould gently with the back of a mixing spatula so that any air bubbles rise to the top and the couverture can spread out evenly. Then turn the mould upside down and let all the chocolate run out of the St Nicholas mould again. Here, too, you should tap the mould again so that the excess chocolate flows out as well and the homemade chocolate figure doesn’t end up with walls that are too thick. Once the chocolate has drained out, you can now run a spatula along the bottom edge to clean it, and then place the mould in the fridge for about 5 minutes.

After the brief cooling break, place a sheet of baking paper on a cake tin, pour about one ladleful of tempered couverture onto it, and spread it evenly with a spatula. Rub the bottom edge of the mould 2–3 times with the palm of your hand to warm the chocolate up slightly again, then place it onto the surface of the couverture you have just smoothed out. Warming it with your hand is important, as this helps the chocolate in the tin bond better with the fresh surface, ensuring a secure connection to the base so that it definitely won’t come away.

Now place the mould in the fridge for a further 5 minutes. After this time, you must remove the clips and then put the mould back in the fridge for at least 20 minutes. If you don’t remove the clips, there will be too much pressure on the mould and your painstakingly crafted Father Christmas might break inside it.

After the 20 minutes in the fridge, you can now take your moulded Santa Claus out of the fridge. Gently wiggle the mould; this will loosen the excess chocolate from the base, leaving the chocolate only where your mould is. Now carefully run a spatula around the edge of the chocolate mould, going all the way round. During this process, air enters the mould and your moulded chocolate figure will almost pop out of the mould by itself. All you need to do now is gently pull one half backwards and then the other. Would you like to do this with your child, or would you like to see it done in person before you try moulding figures yourself at home? Then why not come along to ourSanta Claus moulding course?

Fat-soluble powder colouring or cocoa butter colouring?

Which product you use depends entirely on what you’re planning to create!

If, for example, you want to colour, sprinkle or decorate chocolates or chocolate bars, we recommend using pre-coloured cocoa butter. The advantage of this is that it simply needs to be placed in warm water for a short while and is then ready to use straight away. The cocoa butter becomes very runny and is therefore ideal for creating colourful splashes on moulds or painting praline moulds. However, this runny consistency can be your undoing if you’re working with chocolate figures. If you try to paint the chocolate mould with a brush, the colour may run downwards, mix with your previous work and consequently ‘smudge’ it.

That’s why we recommend using fat-soluble powder colours when working with chocolate figures. Thanks to the added couverture, these are almost as thick as pure couverture and, thanks to the extra cocoa butter, also ensure a vibrant result.

Instead of powder colours, you can also use fat-soluble paste colours. You’ll find these in the fat-soluble powder colours category too. Colourmill colours are oil-based and can therefore also be used to colour chocolate.

For praline creations or chocolate bars, however, we would advise against using this colouring method, as the consistency means you cannot, for example, create fine speckles. Colour gradients are also more difficult to achieve with this method, and it is completely unsuitable for airbrushing.