Have Your Ferret Cake, And Eat It Too!

Ferret Project #4: Molded Cupcakes
For a really fun and classy dessert, you need a mold, some cupcakes or regular cake, buttercream, fruit filling, white or dark chocolate and a small paint brush. Unless you have experience in tempering chocolate, you can purchase bags of pre-colored white and dark chocolate wafers. I suggest using these to save time. The wafers can be purchased from any store selling cake decorating supplies or an online cake supply company. The wafers are also great because they allow you to melt as many or as few as you need. Any leftover chocolate can be poured onto a sheet of plastic wrap. Cool, wrap and store until next time.

Use individual dishes for each color you need. For the two colors of chocolate I used in the sable, I used dark chocolate for the mask, then melted white chocolate and added dark chocolate into the white until I had a lighter shade of brown. For the albino, the eyes are painted dark pink or red, but for the sable, you must use the dark brown, refrigerate until hard, and then add white over the brown so that you have a thin white line around the eyes to help the eyes to show up. When you turn the mold over, you can see the difference. Paint the inside of the ears and the nose. After chocolate has set, paint a mask and put the mold back into the fridge.

Place the mold in the fridge until hard. This keeps the chocolate colors from smearing. Melt enough chocolate to coat the rest of the mold. Make sure the chocolate is not too hot. If it is too hot, it will melt the eyes and nose and smear the colors. It will also be difficult to coat the sides of the mold as the hot chocolate will run down the sides. Cool it until it will easily stick to the sides. The coating should be as thin as possible, but make sure it is all coated. By inverting the mold and holding it to a light source, any really thin spots will show up and you can place a dab of chocolate on it. Don’t worry about the inside being rough or uneven, only the outside will show.

After the chocolate is hard, you are ready to add the filling. Layer cake, buttercream or whipped cream (whip cream will be absorbed into cake and is not recommended unless you are eating it that day). Make sure the filling is a tad lower than the top of the mold. Cover the top (which will be the bottom of the cupcake) with melted chocolate. Place it in the fridge for a couple of hours before turning the mold over and carefully remove the entire cupcake. Do not force it out. Chill longer if it will not easily come out. Let the cupcake warm to room temperature before serving or the chocolate will be too hard to cut.

Ferret Project #5: Rice Krispies Ferret Treat
This is a great project to make with children. The mixture is very hot until it cools a little and requires some heating on the stove or in a microwave, so adult supervision is required for young children. Make a batch of Rice Krispies Treats, and let it cool until you can handle it without burning your hands. Mold it into the desired shape. I used a stiff straw in the neck to help hold the head on. I also had to put the ears on a couple times until it was cool enough to stick.

I airbrushed the mask, legs and tail but you can paint on melted chocolate or dye some of the Rice Krispies Treat recipe with some cocoa powder in the melted butter. I used melted chocolate for the eyes and nose.

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