To me, decorating a chocolate frosting cake is really hard. White frosting is like a blank sheet, you can do anything to it. When a friend of mine asked me to make him a double chocolate, raspberry feeling cake for his 60th birthday i knew i was in for a challenge. The cake is going to be 2 layers, and round. I like round cakes more than rectangle one, i find them easier to frost and more elegant. Anyways, im using a raspberry jelly to make the filling since i cant get fresh or frozen ones where i live. Frosting is a fudge frosint and the cake is dark and rish. My friend wants a very rich cake. Now, what id like is if u guys could help me come up with a way to decorate this cake. I got an idea of making some raspberries and leaves and putting them around the cake in a pretty way but im willing to read some tips and advise.
Thanks
depending on how fany you want to go, you could do white cornelli lace/swirl designs on the sides of the cake, with writing on the top... i like the idea of the raspberries, but you might want to add some lighter colors somewhere on the cake, just to lighten it up a bit.
HTH
(and WELCOME to CC!! 
)
Sounds like a definite chocolate lover .....
How about chocolate curls on the top, with your raspberry idea (which sounds great)
Welcome to CC
I love to do basketweave on a chocolate cake. Then I can decorate the top with chocolate covered strawberries or buttercream flowers. You could even make some sugar cookie flowers on sticks, and stick them into the cake. The top of the cake can be covered in oreo cookie crumbs or chocolate graham cracker crumbs to look like dirt.
I love the raspberry idea........if you didn't wanna get fresh ones they have those raspberry candies in candy stores like at the mall and stuff that look just like real raspberries but you wouldn't have to worry about the juice bleeding out or anything and they're super yummy! Or what about doing a nice boarder and some white and dark chocolate shavings on top! Or even white and chocl. drizzled.
http://www.cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=coppermine&file=displayimage&meta=allby&uname=KHalstead&cat=0&pos=2
I also do basketweaves on my chocolate cakes. You could always do a center arrangement of the raspberries on top with the basketweave on the sides. That would look very nice.
For some reason when it comes to chocolate icing we are afraid to add color to it. There is no reason not to use color on chocolate cakes, even if the back ground is dark instead of white.
I just did a chocolate cake with raspberries and chocolate leaves. I opted to not put the raspberries on the cake as they weren't the best condition. But I love the idea.
Other ideas are to make a fondant raspberry or use "hardier" fruits. Cranberries are pretty and you know what? Tehy are a tart yet tasty treat with chocolate or caramel on them.
Melissa
What about pouring a dark chocolate ganache over the top and let it run down the sides just a little bit. Then make some tiny chocolate leaves by painting the chocolate onto real leaves and peeling it off when they are set. Then just use the raspberry candy and the chocolate leaves to make a little arrangement in the top of the cake or for the bottom border.
Is there any reason why you couldn't do chocolate dipped stawberries instead of the rasberries? Strawberries taste good with rasberries too. Don't you think?
I just did a chocolate cake (it is in my photos). I'm a chocoholic, so I did a chocolate cake, with chocolate buttercream icing. I covered the sides in basketweave, and ground up oreo cookies for the top, and then put half oreo cookies and chocolate dipped strawberries for the border . . . it was heavenly! and it looked amazing, too. THe only problem i had is that oreo cookies are impossible to write on . . .
I never would have though to use the basket weave design, that would look really cool.Id just have to make a lighter and stiffer chocoate frosting for it but that sounds like a good idea. I hope i have the right frosting tip for it. Happy Birthday would be written in white, i want it to be bold.
I can't take credit for the idea . . . I saw a similar cake here on cake central recently, but with cake balls instead of the strawberries, and without the crushed oreos on top, so it inspired me! It was my first attempt at doing basketweave. You can just add powdered cocoa to your regular buttercream icing, and that would work. I actually used hershey's perfectly chocolate buttercream icing this time - it tastes incredible, but i did have to keep popping it in the refrigerator because it is an all butter buttercream, so the heat from my hands kept making it a bit too soft as I was working on the basketweave. I got an amazing reaction from my family, and the restaurant where I took it thought it was a professionally purchased cake . . . made me smile (of course, the waiters/waitresses were just a bunch of teenagers).
Oddly enough, I just did a chocolate raspberry cake today for a friend here at work! But I've done lots of them - I can't remember if I have an example in my photos or not. But check them out anyway - you can get an idea of how I decorate chocolate cakes. THere's one there where I wrote "Brad" out in chocolate ahead of time and put it on top of the cake. Normally, when doing chocolate cakes, I cover the sides in small chocolate curls. I'll put some rosettes on top (4 really fat ones if it's just chocolate, or if it's raspberry like today, I do a bunch of smaller ones around the top edge and put a fresh raspberry on top of each rosette. The red/dark combination is really pretty). Then I'll sprinkle some more chocolate curls and chocolate sprinkles over the top. If it's a berry cake, I'll also put a small mound of icing in the center and put 3 or 4 berries there, too, depending on the size of the berries. I find chocolate cakes the quickest and easiest to decorate- you don't have to worry about mixing colors and all of that!
This how I did my last fudge icing dark chocolate cake
Thanks! He got a kick out of it. I think it's kind of fun to do something unexpected every once in a while! I used Wilton candy melts, and I did like 5 or 6 Brads to allow for breakage - cuz they do tend to break if you're not careful when pulling them off the waxed paper.
I agree, chocolate icing does seem to limit your decorating options a bit. I did one for a friend's birthday yesterday and used a dotted scroll pattern on the sides, then put flowers on top. You could do the same with the berries on top...just an idea.
Usually when I do a chocolate cake I cover it with real 3 min. fudge and spread crushed Pecans on the Fudge. Sometimes I just cover the sides with Pecans so that I can write on the top cleanly or I will cover the entire cake with Pecans and write on top. (wiggly) I will also adorn the cake with grapes.
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