I admit I spent a lot of time stressing over this cake, it had to be perfect. I had a chocolate cake recipe but I started to realise that every time I used it the cake came out differently. So I tried a different cake. The first time I did this I gave it to a friend as a birthday cake and it came out really well. The second and third times I tried it it just flopped. So I went back to the original recipe and decided to try out different variations until it was right. A week before the wedding I tried out three different variations and found the perfect one. Phew was all I could think!
We had done a tasting session a couple of months beforehand and had decided on chocolate fudge icing. This was the easy part. Getting it the right colour wasn't so easy. I decided to add some brown food colouring paste to get it a slightly darker colour. This didn't change the taste so was happy.
The other part was the topper. We had spoken about what my friend would like and it left things open for me. She wanted a seashell theme but we didn't really know what to do after that. While I was on holiday in Brixham I visited the seashell shop and managed to buy a good selection of shells and coral with just the idea of seeing what I could do with it. I was happy with the result, just wish I'd been able to stick the coral down better. But it's all a learning curve.
The chocolate sea shells were a request from the bride.
I had never used dowels or tiered a cake before so I had looked into it for about 2 months before having to actually do it but it didn't stop me from being terrified and not sleeping very well the night before the wedding. The good news though is that it didn't collapse or tilt in any way.
Here is the cake in it's full glory. I was happy with it but more importantly the bride and groom were happy with it. I'm hoping it'll be the first of many to come :)
