A Rosy Chocolate Cake

You can do many, many things when you have immediate access to hundreds of (free) roses: fill a tiny apartment with big arrangements; make bridesmaid bouquets; lay a flower at each place setting for dinner; decorate a cake without frosting tips.

As I mentioned in my first cake post, I’ve never actually learned to decorate a cake. While I may not know the difference between the frosting tips on the top shelf of my cabinet, I do know something about making things pretty.

My mother-in-law’s spring birthday fell during the first peak of rose blooms around here. For dessert, I made a chocolate and raspberry cake (four layers, thanks to the 2″ pans from my husband!), previously taste-tested and whole-heartedly approved. Last year, I scattered whole raspberries on top. This year, I went into the garden and cut two handfuls of light pink Fairy and Sexy Rexy roses.

Decorate a cake with your own garden blooms:

1. Bake, assemble and frost cake. Yum! Save a tiny bit of frosting.

2. Snip the flower stems super short. Use the bottom of a now-empty cake pan to model your arrangement (you don’t even have to wash it first!).

2. Once you’re happy with the design, transfer the roses one-by-one to the frosted cake. Because ganache frosting is a bit stiff, it has the added benefit of being somewhat smudge-resistant (at least when tiny, lightweight roses are dropped in the wrong spot).

3. To keep the flowers in place, heat a couple spoonfuls of leftover frosting for a few seconds and dab the gooey chocolate under each rose with a spoon. “Glue” them one at a time, so you don’t lose track of your arrangement.