When to make the chocolate shapes

Timing is very important: you don't want to be making these the night before the wedding, but you also don't want them to lose their sheen, or even bloom. I made mine 5 days before the wedding, and even that was too far in advance, and I wished I'd stayed up later (than 2am!) to make them again. They were starting to lose their sheen, and this is my one regret about the cake. Unfortunately they also looked worse in the photos than in real life (though perhaps that's the right way round after all). In any case, I'd recommend making them 1-3 days before the event. Store them carefully, in an airtight container at a moderately cool temperature.

What colour chocolate should I use?

This is something you can discuss with the bride and groom. Do they want white chocolate shapes on a dark chocolate background, or milk chocolate shapes on milk chocolate, for example? My brother and his fiance chose to have milk chocolate shapes on a background  of chocolate sauce that used milk and plain chocolate mixed together.

What type of chocolate should I use?

Try out different qualities of chocolate to reach your own compromise between quality and cost.

The texture of the chocolate can be improved by tempering. One way of doing this is to work it backwards and forwards with a wallpaper scraper type instrument. Another way (which I used) is to mix in some more solid chocolate after most of it has melted.

I left them to set gradually (ie not in the fridge) to avoid making them too brittle, but this could have been the cause of my problems: chilling them in the fridge as soon as they go in the mould can help to prevent the chocolate blooming.

Where to get a mould

I was very lucky with this: my son was given an Oxfam advent calendar full of little chocolate hearts. After he'd finished with it, I took out the plastic tray that held the chocolates in the middle and used it as a mould to make the chocolate hearts for the cake (look behind the cakes in the photo!).

You can also get moulds in cookery shops, and I've seen them in the Tchibo range in Somerfield.