What chocolate cake covering can be decorated with icing?

[silver28]

I'm making a birthday cake that needs to be brown then decorated with coloured swirls, butterflies, writing etc (better than it sounds, honest! It's for my nieces birthday and is based on the hippie chick paryware).

I would normally use fondant for base and 3d decoration and royal icing for piping words and swirls. But with it being a brown background I was thinking buttercream it ganache would form a tastier and better looking base. But I can't pipe onto buttercream as it spoils. Would I have the same problem with ganache?

I suppose I could pipe using buttercream (not sure how neat this would be though). But I was planning to make 3d owl, bird and butterflies from fondant do not sure if they'd go funny if sat on buttercream (or ganache).

Please someone tell me what to do! I've not worked with buttercream or ganache much. Maybe I should stick to fondant?!

You could try using cocoform - it's like fondant but chocolate flavour/colour.

Thanks, not heard of that. Do you know if it tastes nice?

I decorated buttercream this week. I smoothed it with a j cloth. Then iced glacé runic writing (!) on it.

Fondants gopping. No one likes it.

I make a ganache with a tin of condensed milk and a bar of melted chocolate which sets hard enough to decorate nicely but soft enough to wedge things in before it dries. Very yummy, too!

Wow just looked it upon amazon and it's a bit expensive! But I did see they also do chocolate flavour regalice fondant so that might be an option. Can any recommend?

I've not tried icing onto buttercream but read that the fat in it (and presumably in ganache too) can break down royal icing so it runs everywhere. Might not be a problem with the fondant decorations though. I'm just nervous as it's the first time I've made a cake for someone else and won't have time to redo it if it goes wrong. Seven year old girls have high expectations!

Condensed milk option sounds delicious but afraid that might also cause the same problem re making icing decorations go runny. Maybe I should do a practice cake (might have to eat it too!). Please could you let me know the ratio of chocolate to condensed milk?

I usually use a tin of condensed milk and a big bar of chocolate - 200g, I think. It sets to a hard fudge consistency. It's difficult to describe - you might just have to try and then eat the results yourself

Also, I've used icing decorations on buttercream before and it does indeed make them go very soft very quickly.

I did a Mary berry chocolate tray bake yesterday. The icing is melted chocolate, little bit of water and icing sugar. It tastes really yummy and I reckon you could ice onto it, put decorations on, etc. it starts off quite squidgy and then goes a bit harder as the chocolate sets.

Or just use ready-made chocolate cake covering (the sort that looks like a block of chocolate, that you melt and pour over the cake and then it sets hard.)

Thanks all. Think I'll do a tester this weekend. It's DH's birthday so he can have an experimental cake! Sure he won't complain.

Think I'll try the condensed milk one first as it sounds so tasty. Thinking about it there fat in chocolate and I've iced onto that before with no problem. If that doesn't work I'll prob buy chocolate fondant, a I've coloured normal fondant brown before and it looks a bit weary, I'd have to use lots of colour paste to get it dark enough and that makes it a bit sticky.