Graduation

Good morning peeps!  Last week I had the pleasure of making a cake for a special lady who graduated from University.  Her sister was actually the one behind it all.  Moka had contacted me about a month ago regarding a cake she wanted to surprise her sister with.  She sent me a pic of the cake she had in mind and upon seeing the graduation cap I couldn't be more excited!

Now, sure, as simple as it may seem, it was actually quite a challenge for me because I was working with chocolate, as opposed to fondant.  Chocolate is a bit more temperamental and tricky to work with.  Once it's melted you don't have much time to play with before it goes rock solid again.  Then cutting it to shape, now that's what I found most challenging.  I used a sharp knife that was run under boiling hot water, dried, then cut.  But sometimes it can still cause the chocolate to break, so you really want to work at a sluggish pace (which was very hard to do when there's a deadline involved).  Anyway, after what felt like hours, I finally got it right.  

This cake is a chocoholics dream!  Rich chocolate cake filled and frosted with chocolate ganache and topped with even more chocolate!  Talk about chocolate overload, huh?  I'm sure they didn't mind it at all.

Well, without further ado, here is my very first graduation cap!  Enjoy!

To see more pics click after the jump...

 I wanted to create a vintage feel to the cap, so I added a touch of gold lustre to give it age...

...and beauty.

This next shot was taken in the evening, just before the cake was collected.  I added a personalised (Tongan) message on the cake boards.  Translation: Congratulations Tou-Fatai Fakauka (that's her name).

Now, talk about great timing, Tonga had won their match against Japan, and so I whipped up a little something special for Moka to add to the celebration.  Here's a sweet  cupcake with a handmade Tongan flag (I had to google it first to be sure I had the right flag in mind, hehe).

Hope you enjoyed this post guys!  Have a tasty Tuesday!  See you again tomorrow for more treats!

xo