Advice please, chocolate cake for shaping / carving

[TheSteveMilliband]

It is ds birthday this week and he has put in a request for a chocolate beaver cake. I have never tried to shape a cake before, and most advice I can see suggests using Madeira...do you think a chocolate cake (like nigellas old fashioned / sour cream) would work? Think a kind of dome for the head (maybe just bake it in a Pyrex bowl) and round tin with deeper cake so can ,make a larger dome for the body...and just chocolate for tail. It could be a complete disaster and as I will be doing it after work tomorrow, not much opportunity for plan b!

Any advice from seasoned bakers would be gratefully received

I think id bake the cakes in pyrex bowls making the job of shaping it easier. i made a tortious out of chocolate cake did the shell in a pyrex bowl made the head legs and arms out of marzipan and dipped them in choclate it looked good and was surprisingly easy. this will help make sure you greese your bowls well and let the cake cool a bit before removing to avoid damage and if adding butter cream make sure the cake is cold or it melts away and the top falls off!!

WJB thanks, that's fantastic! Did wonder about using bowl, do I need to adjust the cooking time much? Marzipan is a great idea, hadn't thought about claws / legs

Itll depend how big your bowl is. Mine took the normal amount of mix so about the same time just keep eye on it and check/skewer it when it looks done.

You could sit on some grass (coconut with a bit of green food colour)

(Plan b could be a log pile the beavers going to come along and eat later)

Thanks wjb, in the oven now and have some coconut and green food colour in the cupboard. Few matchmakers and bobs your uncle (well fingers crossed at least!). Thanks for your help, will post with results later

Ooooh sounds like youve got your plan sorted hope it work out looking forward to knowing how it turns out! !

How about buying those chocolate logs you can get in packs of 6 in the supermarket and making a dam out of them on a pool of blue icing and then just a few marzipan shaped beavers swimming in the pool?

Am I being too ambitious?

Well followed your advice WJB - 2 Pyrex bowls for cake, melted chocolate into beaver tail shape, tons of buttercream and it went down a storm
Morebeta will keep your ideas in mind in case he's still into beavers next year!
Thanks again

Well done nothing says tasty cake better than a big empty plate!!