Mmmmmm chocolate

So this is the cake my sister and I made for my mums birthday...... How did we come up with the idea you ask?  Well, we thought what does our mum like and basically, she likes chocolate.  Sooooo, how did we do it? With chocolate everywhere and a whole bottle of dye!!

My sister came to my house with three loaf size slabs of chocolate cake - kinda like a dense, fudgey cake (actually was really nice and not too rich, so the cake overall wasn't too sickly sweet with all the icing).  We went to tesco to get the decoration food.  Now, I am slightly ashamed to admit it and it was my sisters idea, but we bought the icing (or should I say frosting...).  I was all up for making some chocolate ganache, but for ease, I was persuaded to buy aunt crockers chocolate frosting and I tells you I'm not regretting it (I'm now having the odd spoon full when I come back from work... or 2... or 3.... and I'm putting it on my strawberries and cream.... mmmmmmm, yum!) 

We covered the cake in the frosting and stuck two of them together. We then stuck a slab of chocolate on the end.  Next, the tenuous bit.  Here's a tip.... If you buy lilac dye, just tip the whole bottle in!  We started by just putting in a couple drops, then a few more, then mixed it up, then a few more drops, then mixed it, then more drops, then mixed it, then added a bit of icing sugar to stop it being so runny from all the dye, then more dye, then mix, then dye, icing sugar, dye, mix, dye, icing sugar........ you get the picture...... We had to leave it a bit to dry out before we rolled it - it just fell apart when it was rolled out and lifted up.  Next the 4 handed difficult bit.  One of us layered the icing on the cake and the other sprayed the silver spray on the other side making sure it didn't go on the rest of the cake.... it's a good job this isn't really a recipe book, because I just don't know how would actually explain this without drawing a diagram or something. Then chop some squares from the final cake, ice them, put them on the board (without dropping one upside down like I did) and put some squares of chocolate on it!  Simples! The writing on the top is just skill..... ;-)

Happy Baking! xxx

 (WARNING: remember when putting the candles in that they don't go through chocolate...... otherwise you end up with wonky candles and lots of holes where you tried to put the candle in the cake......)