Celebrating an 80th birthday!

After taking a short break from "caking" over the Christmas holidays, it was time to get back into the swing of things. The 2011 cake season started with a special garden-themed 80th birthday cake. This was a version of my fall garden cake but the flavour (dark chocolate cake with raspberry buttercream filling) allowed for an opportunity to use a chocolate fondant topper over the milk chocolate buttercream frosting. Chocolate fondant is delicious and is very similar in taste to a Tootsie Roll. I also thought the darker fondant would be a fantastic contrast to the brightly coloured sugar flowers. I used white chocolate to add the birthday message, written in German.
To ensure enough servings for everyone (and for those who don't love chocolate), there was also a vanilla cake with layers of tangy lemon curd and lightly flavoured lemon buttercream, topped with a few additional sugar flowers.