I'm supposed to make a birthday cake for my neighbor to serve at our annual Christmas party. I know from past cakes I've made that she will only eat chocolate cake with chocolate icing. Her husband requested "flowers, just make it fluffy". I think he meant frilly. Anyone have any ideas of something I could do that would be pretty. The Christmas party theme is Casino Royale and we are all dressing up. I don't know what other people are going as but the invitation said gangster so my husband will be a gangster with a Tommy gun and I will be dressing as a flapper. I hope somebody has a cute idea because I'm creatively tapped out at the moment.

Thanks
Ash

I don't know what the others at the party would think but.... how bout making the cake look like the interior of a "bordello" you know with tassels and draping fondant and all that in really really rich colors or..... beings the party is themed in the ganster era how bout an "art deco" themed cake. Just a coupla ideas n such. hope that helps.

how about a cake to look like a crate of bootlegged "hooch" you could do the slats with the large icng tip and go from there.. that way it could be chocolate cake and choc icing.. not too frilly but it would fit the theme... just an idea off the top of my head

How about something like the 4th of july cake you did?(great job on it by the way ) Make the top layer chocolate w/ chocolate butter cream icing on the sides and green on top ...like the felt top on a gambling table....you can do cards and chips on the sides and in a spray from the top. You still can put pretty flowers and swags on the side of the bottom layer and make that one any way you want!

Let's see here....I'm definitely seeing green to represent the felt on a casino card table. I'm seeing colored chocolates (molds) to represent playing chips and possibly scattered cards (or you could freehand the cards).

I'm also seeing a flapper or cigarette hostess in a santa claus snow hat and santa claus flapper suit. Lastly, I'm seeing some kind of red shimmer or green shimmer accents. Lastly, maybe a roulette table or something like that.

I wish I could think of more. Good Luck!


Bunchy

There is a poker table cake in the Wilton 2005 in yearbook.

Great ideas. I like the flapper with Santa hat idea. Witha red shimmery dress.

C

You said pretty and flowers right? This doesn't have to fit the theme of the party?
Since she likes chocolate, I think that pink or baby blue look awesome with chocolate brown. Those colors are very "in" right now. You could frost in Chocolate buttercream and add some fondant gerber daiseys in those colors something like this cake done by another cc member. I LOVE this cake!

Thank you all for the great ideas. It's definitely helping to get the creative juices flowing again. My problem is that it has to be COMPLETELY chocolate. She won't even eat chocolate buttercream. It has to be chocolate icing like Betty Crocker in the can. I don't even think she would eat it if I put a small amount of powdered sugar in the icing to make it thick enough to do more than just ice the cake. This cake is giving me fits.

if it's all chocolate she wants...how about a cake covered in ganache and then decorate with strawberries dipped in chocolate and maybe some fondant flowers the same color as strawberries w/ some fondant leaves?

You could make the flowers a little funky like the following link:

http://www.wilton.com/decorating/basic/funflowers.cfm

What about chocolate candy clay instead of fondant? It tastes more like just regular chocolate. The ganache would be good.

You could also do a chocolate transfer. It is like doing a frozen buttercream transfer except you use chocolate and you do not have to freeze it. You could do cover the cake with a dark chocolate ganache and decorate with a lighter color candy clay or transfer. Maybe the transfer could just be the silhouette of a flapper.

C