Dark Chocolate Cake with Dark Chocolate Buttercream Filling

covered with handpainted Vanilla Marshmallow Fondant. All

embellishments are sugar paste and edible.

The project for this week was one where I had to prepare well in advance for the embellishments on the cake and some of those didn't work out so I had to also think fast on my feet. The cake itself went as smooth as butter. It was for a friends 40th birthday and, as such, was fun to make. My own design, my own choices and my own art project. Those are always lots of fun.

In making a tool box there are plenty of options...new, old, what color, what size, what shape, what tools to embellish with and lastly what cake to make to under all of that. Well, I knew our friend loves chocolate so that was an easy choice and decided to use my death by chocolate cake recipe so it would be really moist and have a deep chocolate flavor. And just because you can never have enough chocolate I decided to top it off with dark chocolate buttercream for the filling!

The measuring tape took shape over about 3 weeks. From making and painting the box shape to making and painting the tape section and letting each step dry a few days after each adjustment. The hammer was a last minute creation because the tile snips I attempted to make just fell apart when I tried to glue them together in the end. Sometimes no amount of work on pieces for a cake can make those pieces into something that fits together and looks like it's real life counterpart. So I grabbed up some sugar paste and started moulding and shaping the hammer, trying to give the handle the look of real wood before painting it. Since I had not considered a wood look embellishment that meant I had to rethink the color of my old fashioned wooden toolbox. So instead of an Oak look, I decided to make it look like varnished Cedar instead. This way the hammer I hadn't planned on would stand out on the tool box. All of the silver embellishments had to be sculpted and then painted after they were dry. This is done with gell color and clear alcohol. The alcohol allows the gell color to go on very smoothly like paint and then the alcohol evaporates very quickly allowing the color to dry rapidly. On fondant this makes a wood effect very easy to achieve.

The Birthday Guy was really surprised and really happy with this cake. I usually get to taste the cake in pieces...cake top from trimming, a taste of the filling to make sure it's right, but this time I got to taste it in it's full form and it was a dark moist chocolate dream. The compliments from the guests were nice but how it made the Birthday Guy glow was priceless.

This upcoming week brings a 5 tier cake for a special 50th Birthday. Can't wait to share!

Cat