Truffles and Shoes (Christian Louboutin)

This post is dedicated to Christian Louboutin.  He is a household name so I don't have to explain how he is the shoe master.  Here's a bit from Wiki...

Louboutin helped bring stilettos back into fashion in the 1990s and 2000s, designing dozens of styles with heel heights of 120mm (4.72 inches) and higher. The designer's professed goal has been to "make a woman look sexy, beautiful, to make her legs look as long as [he] can."While he does offer some lower-heeled styles, Louboutin is generally associated with his dressier evening-wear designs incorporating jeweled straps, bows, feathers, patent leather, red soles and other similar decorative touches. He is most popularly known for his red-bottom high heel shoes, commonly referred to as "sammy red-bottoms." Christian Louboutin's red-bottom colour code is registered as Pantone 18-1663 TPX.

Despite being known for his celebrity clients, he rarely gives shoes away – offering discounts instead to his high-profile fans. This policy also extends to his personal family, because he feels that giving shoes away as gifts is unimaginative.

His single biggest client is Danielle Steel, who is reputed to own over 6,000 pairs and is known to have purchased up 80 pairs at a time when shopping at his stores.

Wow,  I want my own Pantone color!  And Danielle Steel, can you start buying some cakes please?!;)

These are everything!

I love these too!  Stop looking!;)

His men's collection is fun.  I will take a pair of the red and the green;)

And these babies above are 8 inch heels.  I think you have to be Black Swan to wear them!

Here is the one that sealed the deal!!!... love those studs!!  It's like shoes with rainbow jimmies (or sprinkles...whichever you call it)

So as you can see....amazing style with lots of detail.  I really am digging the studs.  And I think I know just the thing to make.

I started with a company called in2food (and yes...it's supposed to be lower case) in November as their creative guy.  I get to travel around and put on presentations using our products....sweet gig (pun intended).  We import chocolate, chocolate decorations, and many other pastry products from Europe and Asia.....things you couldn't just find in an American store.  One of the lines we carry is called Pavoni.  They are a company based in Italy with some seriously awesome molds!  

The shapes are fun and inventive...this is a dessert made from the Pavoflex molds.  I need something small though, like a truffle mold to create my studs (well... over the top studs).

This truffle is not the shape I am looking for but you can see how unique the shapes come.  Here are some splatter paint truffles I made for a presentation last month......

Pretty fun!!  The mold I used is called Formaflex Micro Savain Quadrato.....sounds fancy;)

Okay let's get started....

I chose this mold (Praline Mold Diamante) because I love the shape and I think it will look cool as an exaggerated stud.  I melted some white coating chocolate and dyed it pink.  I don't like to add gel or liquid color to chocolate because it will start to thicken.  I used this pink powder color and add a small amount of oil to make a paste.  The oil works great because it will not thicken the chocolate and it also allows all the color to "bloom".  If you were to add just the powder to the chocolate, it would have little pink flakes.

Now that the truffles are made, we can start on the cake.  I only want one tier with the studs, so I need to make the other two something fun, but not overshadowing.

I have always wanted to make a cake that looks like this.... speaking of black swan...I bet she's wearing those 8 inch heels!

Yes....it's McQueen...of course;)  Since I am using chocolate, I decided to use another medium that is used in desserts (you know, something other than gumpaste or fondant).  Coconut!!! Note here....you have to use the large flake coconut to achieve this look.

I start by smearing an area of the cake with royal icing and then patting it with my spatula to get a rough effect...

Good.  Now I push handfuls of the coconut shavings into the royal icing.....this is a little messy but super fun!

As you can see.....it doesn't look like the swan dress....but it's a start.  I do this first to get a good base and then I add pieces to get the look I want.....

I am also using rice paper (wafer paper) to add larger pieces.  I cut various strips...

Then I pull them against my scissor blade to curl them....it's like curling a ribbon....but be super gentle!!

Now I am going to add the curly pieces and more coconut by hand.  I pipe bits of royal protruding out....this will give a bit of volume to the texture....

Then hand place my pieces....I know...I am ridiculous...I like tedious work;)

Now that looks way better.  I left the space at the top to add a crystal ribbon and then work my way up to it.

Let's glue the truffles...one at a time with royal.  You can see I added some texture to this tier.

It looks really fun but not enough...this is Louboutin....it's got to be over the top.  I am going to add some white truffles where the texture is...

YYYEEEEESSSS!!!

Here she is all together!!  Drum roll please....

  It's a bit of a departure from my piping and throwing gold on everything!

If you wanna see more from in2food just visit the online store here.  Oh, and I will be doing some "how to" videos next month for our Youtube channel.  I will keep you posted. 

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That is all for now!  Bye!