Graduation cake for a chocolate lover...

This cake was chocolate with a chocolate mousse filling, and iced in chocolate ganache. I had made a cake similar to this one before, but not iced in the chocolate ganache. I used Minette Rushing's (Savannah Custom Cakes) ganache recipe for the first time, and it was absolutely fabulous. It was so easy to make, and to ice the cake with. It went on soooo smoothly. I will use it again and again. Here's the recipe:

1 lb. 8 oz. chocolate (I used the Ghirardelli's 60% double chocolate bittersweet chips)

3 1/3 cups heavy whipping cream

Put the chocolate chips in large bowl. Heat the heavy whipping cream until it just begins to boil. Pour over the chocolate chips, and let stand for a few minutes, then stir gently until the cream and chocolate are well incorporated and all of the chocolate has melted. You may need to use a wire whisk to gently stir the mixture at the end. Let mixture set overnight at room temperature and it will be ready to use.

Here is a link to Minette's You Tube video where she demonstrates making the ganache:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBZ3z4n7Fhc&feature=fvsr 

You can see how smoothly the ganache spread on...so easy to work with

For the diploma and flowers I used a mixture of 50/50 gumpaste and fondant and let dry over flower formers to get the curled effect. They are trimmed with a combination of gold glaze and gold highlighter dust.

The silhouette is done with flow-in buttercream. I first trace the design into the icing with a toothpick, then outline it with regular consistency buttercream. Then I thin out the buttercream with light corn syrup until it will flow into the design easily, using a #3 tip.