I'm just full of questions these past couple days. I'm so excited to make my daughter's birthday cake. It's her first birthday "party", even though she's turning 2. We adopted her last year from China and got her home 4 days before her first birthday. So, needless to say the new jet-lagged mommy wasn't up to having a big shindig with a big pretty cake. Anyway, I'm so excited about this one I think I'm going to burst before I can make it...

Anyway, my thinking, because I am doing neon colors on her cake and chocolate icing, is that I want to put a chocolate ganache over the buttercream to get a nice dark chocolate color. How well will the ganache set up after pouring it over the cakes? Will it hold buttercream decorations on the side, like stripes and swirls and stuff?

OR, does anyone have any tips on how to make chocolate buttercream nice and dark on its own?

Thanks so much!

Hope

It sets pretty well. Enough to spread. If you are pouring it right after it liquifies, then you might have to coat and recoat your cake (pour the liquid ganache a couple of times).

If you want, you can let it set in the fridge until it hold shapes (peaks), then you can whip it a little bit, then spread it on the cake like you would with any icing.. you can also pipe it. It has consistency of ready made frosting ( Pillsbury of Duncan Hines) when it has set after a few hours.

W#hat you want to do is let it cool down before you pour it over any icing so the ganache doesn't melt the BC. The one time I used it I absolutely fell in love with it. I'm waiting for a reason to use it again.

If you decide to just do chocolate buttercream like you mentioned, you can get it nice and dark with the hersheys Special DArk Dutch processed cocoa. ( It is so much better tasting too than regular cocoa I think...though I am a big fan of the expensive dark chocolates) Plus I dont think you have to add as much

What about mixing whipped ganache and buttercream