Hmmmm....Sons best friend has requested a chocolate cake with strawberry buttercream (anyone have a crusting recipe for that one?) - he is in a band, plays guitar and is overall very musical. Any ideas??

use your regular crusting recipoe and add strawberry jam or straberry flavor

You can also use a little bit of unsweetened strawberry kool aid powder...it adds a pink color and the tartness...and then you can also add flavoring extract and the preserves as well.

Or you can take a bag of frozen strawberries and some sugar and cornstarch and make a strawberry sauce to blend into your icing.

What about design? I just cant seem to wrap my brain around a masculine *pink* cake! lol! But as the birthday boy says..."Pink is Shniz"

How about just an "old fashioned" round birthday cake? You could put chocolate covered strawberries on the top for decoration. Simple and yummy!

I agree with Jennifer... simple is always delicious. Along with the chocolate covered strawberries, you can also include a big chocolate piped trebel clef in the center of the cake for the music birthday boy.

You could make a sheet of music out of fondant and draw notes on it, I did one recently for my dad and googled 'happy birthday music score' and then copied the notes exactly, if he can read music then this might give me a wee chuckle. You could also make a fondant/sugarpaste guitar and have that sticking out of the centre of the cake.

My DH also likes strawberry BC and doesn't give a hoot that it's pink!

A guitar and/or music notes would be easy to do with fondant pieces or any of the image transfer methods (chocolate, FBCT, color flow, etc.)

I ended up winging it with the frosting and it was YUMMY! I took my regular buttercream recipe and sort of added/tasted/added/tasted...I ended up putting in some strawberry Nestle syrup, some strawberry jam, some finely chopped fresh strawberries and even a little Nestle powdered strawberry drink mix...talk about a hodge podge! But it turned out DELISH!

I made him a round cake, iced in the strawberry buttercream, with a poured ganache drizzling over the top/sides. Then I put tuxedo dressed strawberries and white chocolate musical notes piled haphazardly in the center. He was thrilled and it didn't talk much time at all. (its in my pics)

I wanted to thank everyone for their help. I absolutely love these boards. I don't post a ton but I sure do lurk a lot!

you could also use a strawberry flavouring oil such as the one made by LorAnn and than it tastes like strawberry but is white.

I say more power to the young man that knows what he likes and wants and is not threatened by the pink. there are too many of usthat still tend to think that boys can not be dressed in pink-like shirts for example, but I am learning that guys actually look quite good in pink if they know how to dress well anyway. I have met some very masculine men that look very good in pink and are not sheepish about wearing the color. So we need to keep remembering to applaud young men that aren't afraid to speak up about what they want even if it might mean it is a typically feminine color. I bet the cake was delicious.

Saw your cake and it looks yummy...however next time place your strawberries so the stems are not facing out. You can't really see the tuxedo effect--and they're cute!