I have to make a grave/headstone cake for my bosses 30th birthday. I have recently discovered that she doesn't need it for a party, she just plans to share it at work (no pressure at all). With this discovery, I was thinking that actually making the headstone stand up would be awesome. I'm not quite sure how to do this. I prefer using fondant, and I'm concerned that trying to cover a standing headstone, no matter how many supports I have in it, will fall over. So I was thinking about just rounding off the cake so that it looks like a fresh grave and making the headstone out of chocolate so that I can take it to work separately and assemble it when I get there. The problem is that the only other time I've worked with chocolate was on a spongebob/hamburger cake and I used the spongebob cake pan as a mold. Is there a way to make a mold in order to do this headstone? Or a way to actually make the cake stand up? This cake NEEDS to be one of the best I've ever made because the people at work haven't really seen my work yet and I feel that this could bring me a lot of business. Any advise would be more than appreciated!

The headstone has to be made ahead of time so you will get it perfect. You have the choice of using candymelts or real chocolate if you feel confident at tempering it.

Make the headstone by melting a pound and pouring it onto parchment paper. Spread it about 1/4" thick with a metal spatula. Let it cool to room temperature bot do not chill. Make a headstone shape out of paper to use as a pattern. Cut with a clean small sharp knife.

After you cut out the shape, turn it over and add two clean popsicle sticks so that they are half along the two sides and half sticking out the bottom. Re-melt your scraps and pour them over the back so that the sticks are covered 1/8" deep.

Those sticks will hold your stone up when you push them into the iced cake. Best to take the stone to work and stick it in at the last minute.

You can "engrave" the lettering with the tip of a small paring knife, again while the chocolate is at room temperature. You can add coloured lettering with royal icing.

That is a great idea! I'll have to print that out and give it a try, that way if I can't get it to work, I have plenty of time to practice. I was just researching and was thinking I could use rkt's too. I'm not sure which will give me the best result though. I'm concerned about covering something that shape in fondant. I'm concerned that the rkt would cut right through the fondant...no matter how many layers of buttercream I use.

For the lettering I'm probably just going to cheat and use the pre-made letters I bought. To me, the letters on this are too important to leave to my own hand. If the headstone isn't perfect, it's ok because an old headstone shows age...but the lettering has to be clean (same size, width, etc.)

I would make it out of rkt. You can make it now and let it sit out to dry. Then you can carve it to smooth it out. Doing it in rkt lets you make it thicker and it's not as fragile as chocolate.

I made a cake like the one you wanted and I used rkt, then covered it with grey fondant and piped vines an it.

http://cakecentral.com/gallery/1736797/buried-youth