Today is my beautiful niece's 18th birthday (doesn't seem possible!) and I was asked to make the cake.
After a bit of a major disaster (had to make a second cake late last night as the first one sank, and not blowing my own trumpet, but my cakes don't normally do that!) I was up at 7am this morning trying to work out what to do for decoration.
A bit bleary-eyed about 4 hours later, this was the final result - a rich chocolate cake with ganache covering, topped with sugar paste flowers and white chocolate shavings. I made 2 smaller "cakes" for the sides to hold the candles - the "E" candle was a sparkler one and I didn't want the sparky bits going all over the chocolate.
I managed to get it to the restaurant in one piece thanks to a lovely cab driver who drove very carefully after I pointed out he may not want to work the rest of the day covered in a pink/white/brown gooey mess, lol.
Stuffed as we all were after a lovely meal, everybody managed a sliver (or 2) so it seemed to go down very well.
Next week it's going to have to be Christmas cake weekend or it won't have time to absorb all the brandy I'll treat it to in the run up to the big day :-)
After a bit of a major disaster (had to make a second cake late last night as the first one sank, and not blowing my own trumpet, but my cakes don't normally do that!) I was up at 7am this morning trying to work out what to do for decoration.
A bit bleary-eyed about 4 hours later, this was the final result - a rich chocolate cake with ganache covering, topped with sugar paste flowers and white chocolate shavings. I made 2 smaller "cakes" for the sides to hold the candles - the "E" candle was a sparkler one and I didn't want the sparky bits going all over the chocolate.
I managed to get it to the restaurant in one piece thanks to a lovely cab driver who drove very carefully after I pointed out he may not want to work the rest of the day covered in a pink/white/brown gooey mess, lol.
Stuffed as we all were after a lovely meal, everybody managed a sliver (or 2) so it seemed to go down very well.
Next week it's going to have to be Christmas cake weekend or it won't have time to absorb all the brandy I'll treat it to in the run up to the big day :-)
