I had a vision for my Mom's 60th Birthday cake, and I have to say that I love how it turned out. I usually brainstorm ideas and then gradually get overly ambitious and over the top, and then alter my plans as I go. It's important to be flexible when things don't go as planned for whatever reason, and that's one of the things I love about cake decorating. Everything very rarely goes completely according to plan, but it's a thrill to creatively problem solve and change your vision on a time crunch! For this cake, I had read about how to create a lacy chocolate effect, but never used the technique myself before. The other obstacle I faced was trying to ice a freshly baked cake in a very warm kitchen- with no spare time to refrigerate layers.
The cake itself was dark chocolate, with layers of raspberry jam in between and iced with almond buttercream icing. I piped an ombre ruffle effect on the bottom tier first, starting with a darker gold at the bottom and fading to a paler gold and white icing at the top of the layer. To make the white chocolate collar, I used candy melts. I measured a piece of wax paper longer than the circumference of the top tier of the cake that I wanted to encircle. As candy melts set incredibly quickly, I had to work fast to pipe out a swirly design onto the wax paper, and let it sit for a few minutes until the design was basically hardened but still flexible enough to wrap around the top layer. At this point, being incredibly short on time, we drove the cake as is to the venue- wax paper still wrapped around the top tier to give more time for the design to set. Last minute touches were added and I carefully removed the wax paper to find an intact design.! I touched up some icing, added the topper, fresh raspberries, gold sprinkles and edible sugar pearls. That's another tip- always bring an emergency kit of supplies you may need to touch up a cake, you'd rather be over-prepared than not have what you need to make your cake shine.! I finished everything off with a few sprigs of baby's breath. It turned out beautifully and tasted great too!
