Bonsai Cats

I have admired this Bonsai Cats shirt for quite some time. It's just soo cute!! I started this project by baking a Guinness Stout Chocolate Cake from the King Arthur cookbook. I then made a dark chocolate ganache filling for the cake using chocolate and heavy cream. It firms up very nicely, and is super delicious to boot! Once the cake was baked and filled I carved it into the rough shape of the planter and set it in the fridge to chill. A bonsai tree is not normally a structure that lends itself to cake, so we made a trip to the local hardware store to get support materials. You would be surprised at the crazy looks you get sitting in the floor of the plumbing aisle with your cake diagram piecing together PVC adapters. We needed a lighter edible material for the tree section, so we made up a coulple of batches of rice crispy treats. We then started covering the support system with modeling chocolate, a yummy mixture of chocolate and corn syrup that works like edible play-doh. In fact, all the decorations were made from chocolate. While we were working with the tree pieces one fell and broke the corner off 2 (two!) sides of the planter. It was OK though, we had extra modeling chocolate to make new panels.

I was very torn whether or not to make my cake colored like a real bonsai or keep the same white/red color scheme of the shirt. As you can see, the original monochromatic theme won out! Even though my hubby and I make cakes for a living, I don't think we have had this much fun with a cake in a long time! We never get to make cakes just for us, so this was a labor of love that gave us a chance to stretch our creative wings. Once we started the decorating process, this cake took approximately 40 man hours to complete!!