Sister's Birthday

Today is my little sister's birthday and I will be endeavouring to make her a cake that will rock her world ;)
I'll upload photos to show you how it turned out

Ok, I'm please to inform you that the cake was a masterpiece, one that actually brought my sister to tears. The 3 and a half hours it took to make and design the cake was well worth the time and back aches.

The one piece of advice I can give when making novelty cakes is USE A TEMPLATE, that and a sharp knife. They make cutting out shapes so much easier and more realistic.
The icing i used for this cake was a chocolate ganache: 100 ml thickened cream and 200gr of melting chocolate, combined in a saucepan until combined and smooth. Ganache is perfect to use warm or cold (set in the fridge). A trick I discovered while decorating the cake, if you find that you ganache is running outside of your decorative lines, hold a large ice block about a cm away from the icing. The ice block will harder the ganache, thereby making it easier to work with.

NOTE: Mud cake is a lot easier to work with than a simple chocolate cake. The cake itself if more dense, so when icing the cake, you will find that less of the cake will break or crumb off in the icing.

Also, if you have a steady hand, don't underestimate your abilities, the decoration on the top of the cake was done free hand, either with a spoon or a piping bag.

Also, note, if you plan on making a white ganache, white chocolate melts and cream make a yellow tinged icing. So if you are dead set on a white icing, maybe don't go with the ganache.

And just for some decoration, make some shapes out of melted chocolate, using a piping bag, because not only do they look affective, but they are a nice touch, to give to everyone with a slice of this yummy cake.