Cake decorating people: chocolate ideas please!

[hobnob]

I'm making a friend's 40th birthday cake. It's going to be a 12" square cake with an 8" one sitting on top of it, probably covered with chocolate ganache. What would look really impressive in the way of decoration? Mustn't be too too tricky as I am an amateur. It could also look quite informal - she won't be expecting anything more impressive than chocolate buttons but I'd like to do something more ambitious than that. I'd be very grateful for some inspiration.

I'd do cut out stars of white, and dark chocolate - just melt the chocolate, spread onto greaseproof paper - then just before it's set use a cookie cutter to cut out stars. These should then just lift off when set - make sure you use a cold metal spatula thingy. I would stand some up on the top and randomly dot round the sides.

That, sounds like a great idea! The other thing you could do, it make chards of chocolate (in a similar fashion to the stars) and stand them up around the sides. Have a look on Flickr for cake ideas. (Or COV's profile!)

Oh yes I bow to COV's cake making expertise!

Thank you so much. I love the star idea. I've now decided the cake should be round rather than square and the stars will look even nicer this way. Also, thanks for the links, MML. I'm going have a look at them now.

Goodness me; I have just seen COV's cakes! Aren't they wonderful!

They're fab arn't they - glad you like my idea!

please help,i am after a good madeira cake recipe, anyone have a good one.
also, in a recipe when it says 'add zest', what exactly o they mean. thnks