Getting this cake home was a trick, but it survived the 20 minute walk to my apartment with only minimal wear-and-tear.  One of the things that I love about pastry school is this physical and almost-immediate gratification.  Some cakes might take a full three days to assemble, but this time span is nothing compared to the weeks I would anguish over certain research papers during my former life as an undergraduate student.  Writing papers (and maybe even printing them out if I wanted to live a little) simply did not offer the same thrill as struggling home with a hefty box of beautiful cake.

 

Cake plateaus elevate any cake to worship-able status, and this pink and purple stand from Anthropologie definitely did the trick.  The purples were  a perfect contrast to the dark cake glaze.

I recently staged at a wedding cake studio, which reinforced my dream-of-the-week of being a specialty cake designer!  My wedding cake unit starts today, so time will soon tell if my vision pans out.  In the meantime, I’m going to let the momentum of this chocolate cake propel me forward.

We learned how to spread melted chocolate on long acetate sheets in order to achieve these headband-shaped swirls of solid chocolate decoration.  With the right materials, it was surprisingly simple!