Saturday 25 February 2012

Monster High & Turning 10


I was really pleased to make a wonderful Birthday Cake for a special girl who turned 10 this past week.  Her party is on this Sunday.

She likes Chocolate, Purple, Books and Monster High.  I had no idea what to do but a little google work and surfing through the wonderful internet and hey presto ideas galore.  Monster High was going to be the easiest theme to run with.

She was having a very "grown up" birthday party at Max Brenner (a chocolate desert restaurant) so the cake needed to be quite sophisticated too.  I created a large Chocolate mud cake using the recipe from Planet Cake with the addition of some extra chocolate pieces inside the cake.

After baking I froze the cake for 48 hours to aid in making the cake even muddier.  It was then halved and trimmed to remove any hardened edges from the baking process.

I then made a chocolate ganache with dark chocolate and pure cream and this was used in between the two layers and to seal the entire cake.  It was then returned to the fridge overnight to harden so it could be finalised the following day.

The cake was tall and elegant and the sides and top came out beautifully smooth.  Instead of hot knifing this time I used a small paring knife and gently trimmed the hardened chocolate to really crisp up  and neaten the edges - this worked well.

I then applied a black rolled fondant by Pettinice over the entire cake and smoothed and eased this into position.

Once the black fondant was in place I set to work cutting out the template pieces for the Monster High skull logo and the 2cmx2cm pink and white 'tiles' to make the harlequin decoration for the side of the cake.

I used the photocopied templates to cutout the skull with bow from the white fondant using a very sharp knife and left to dry slightly.

I then began applying the pink and white diamonds to the side of the cake.  Its important to accurately measure the height of your cake etc to get the right sized tile.  I then worked around the cake to create the wonderful harlequin effect.  I love it - I think it looks just wonderful.

Once the skull had firmed up a little I carefully transferred it over onto the top of the cake and eased it into position - this was much harder than it looked.  Then the bow was put in place.  Im very pleased with how it turned out but as always can see many little flaws in it myself.

I then just had to place the finishing touch on the top - the name - and it was complete.  I hope it makes her smile and I hope it tastes absolutely delish - It is gluten but not dairy free - it is definitely moist and gorgeous and I hope it sends the girls into chocolate overload !

Lx

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