"Random Chocolate Cake"

I was asked to make a chocolate cake for a father and daughter birthday combination. After putting a few ideas forwards we decided to go for a random chocolate theme where the cake was decorated in various chocolate treats. 

I made my rich chocolate cake, 8inch, and covered it in chocolate butter icing. This was then edged in giant chocolate buttons. For the top of the cake I used Vice Versas around the rim of the cake. I then filled in, starting from the centre, in malteasers. Finally, using some more buttons, I added another dimension to the cake and placed these upright between the teasers. 

Top View

Full View

I was asked to place a message on the cake so I decided to do this on some chocolate. This was actually the most difficult part of the cake as the message was quite long and needed to be in a fairly small area. I decided to use white chocolate as the background and then pipe on the message using milk chocolate. I originally did this the other way around but found the white chocolate harder to pipe into lettering. I also tried to write using pen and paint but finally managed to get the message on using a squirt bottle. I was reasonably happy with the final product. The plaque on the top could either be on the top or rested on the side. 

Plaque on Top

Chocolate Flowers Cake

I was asked to make a chocolate cake for someone's birthday this week. After showing her my previous flowers cake she mentioned she liked this so I did something along the same lines. She also mentioned that she liked cherries so I put in a black cherry filling for her. I was given a budget for this one so I had to carefully keep all my ingredients in check and make sure I wasn't designing a cake that was too expensive. The rich chocolate cake recipe is more expensive than normal sponge but also decorating in chocolate can add up very quickly if you buy too many different varieties. 

I used half of my usual rich chocolate recipe:

325g Butter

325g Plain chocolate

325g Plain Flour

50ml Coffee

1tsp Vanilla Essence

1tsp baking powder

1tsp bicarbonate of soda

475g Soft Brown Sugar

5 Eggs

300ml Soured Cream

Melt the chocolate and butter together. Then mix all the ingredients together and bake in the oven for at least 1 hour, until a skewer comes out clean. Leave to cool in the tin before you remove (otherwise it just falls apart). 

I sliced the cake in half and filled with a tin of black cherry filling. This is thicker than the standard black cherries in syrup and holds its shape better in the cake. 

I then coated the whole cake in vanilla butter icing. 250g Butter and 500g Icing Sugar. I made sure this was completely smooth to give a good finish on the cake. 

Iced Cake

Next step was to prepare all the chocolate. Firstly I grated a bar of plain chocolate. Then I halved some of the buttons, minstrels and vice versas. I put these in the fridge so they were really cool and I could handle them without them melting. 

Prepared Chocolate

Firstly I used the grated chocolate for the rim of the cake. I had never tried this before but it was very straightforward to do. I press it all into the butter icing with my hands making sure there were no gaps and it was an even coating. 

Next I created a flower right in the centre of the cake using giant milk chocolate buttons. I first place a white chocolate button right in the centre of the cake and then used this to create the flower using the halved buttons. 

I then created the border on the cake by alternating the vice versas. 

Finally I filled in the remaining space making some flowers with the halved white chocolate buttons, vice versas and minstrels. 

Finished Top View

Finished Side View

Overall I was pleased with this cake and how it looked. Creating cakes like this is very effective and gives a nice finish. My customer seemed very happy with the cake and that's the most important thing. 

The Final Eeyore Cake

I wanted to write a quick post on the eeyore cake that I made for M&M's party yesterday, it's basically the same as the previous one I made with just a few additions.

Firstly I made 2 chocolate sponges like this one  and I added chocolate chips, 50g milk, 50g white and 50g of honeycomb pieces to each. 

These were placed in the fridge overnight and then carved, as described on the previous cake, and covered with icing. I also covered the cake board with icing so there was a nice finish surrounding the cake. 

Next day I started the details on the cake. First thing was to colour the icing for the nose and ears. I stuck the nose on and rolled out the icing for the ears. I first cut the purple icing, freehand, to create the shape. Using the first ear as the template I cut another purple piece and then 2 pink pieces. Placing one pink on top of a purple I trimmed around the pink to make it slightly smaller. I discovered it's better to do this than cut it before the pieces are together because as you pick them up the icing tends to stretch a little. 

Using purple icing I shaped the legs, these are pure blocks of icing, and tail. I cut a piece of pink into a long strip and folded it over to make the bow. Finally I stuck some white onto the face for the eyes. 

Without the details

The next step was to create all the details. I dyed some icing black and made little balls for the eyes. I then rolled small sausages for the hair on the head and tail. I also used thinner sausages for the eyebrows and nose details. 

I then coloured some icing blue, red, green and yellow for the ribbon detailing and the hat. To make the hat I shaped some blue icing into a cone shape for the hat. I then rolled out each of the colours into long strips. By holding one end and carefully twisting the icing you get the ribbon effect. I also cut thin strips for the hat. 

Finished cake

I was very happy with the final cake and got lots of comments on how nice the cake was. 

As I reminder, I am avaliable to take orders in the local area. At present (July 2013) I'm just charging for the ingredients, this cake was around £25. If you have an idea of what you'd like in a cake or even if you don't, please get in touch. 

M&M is ready for her party..