I am going to make a pirouette cake for a co-worker's birthday. I plan to make a chocolate cake and frost it with the chocolate syrup frosting (recipe on this website). I would like to use a berry filling (strawberry or raspberry). I am fairly new to cake decorating and I have never tried a filling other than buttercream icing. I am assuming I would need to make a dam for the filling, but what would I use to make the dam? Thanks.
I am not sure what the chocolate syrup frosting is, but if it is similar in texture to buttercream you can fill a piping bag with a #10 plain piping tip and pipe the dam just inside the edge of the bottom layer, fill with your filling just to the top of that line, don't over fill it. Place the top layer on and then using the same piping tip and bag, pipe a line of icing on the side of the cake where the two layers come together. If you fill in that space it holds the layers together and the filling won't ooze out, and you won't get that unattractive bulge in the center of the cake. Smooth that line of icing with an icing spatula, then crumb coat or just ice with your icing.
My other suggestion would be to buy good quality Pirouline cookie, the Pepperidge Farms brand are not that tasty. Cut one of your Pirouline cookies to the height you want, if the cake is 4" tall, cut the cookie about 5" with a serrated edge knife in a sawing motion. Use that cookie to measure all the others so they are the same length, it looks much nicer than to have the cookies all jagged heights. You can use the cut off pieces of cookie to fill in the top of the cake, or just use them to snack on. The moisture of your icing will hold the cookies in place., it takes about 2 cans to do a 10" round cake. It looks pretty to tie a ribbon around the sides of the cake with a bow in front, but you don't have to do that. If you aren't serving the cake until the following day, wrap the sides with saran wrap to keep the cookies crisp.
Quote by @%username% on %date%
%body%