I love chocolate cake. When I was talking over cake ideas, the idea of a log cake for a woodland themed baby shower was tossed out for consideration. Gotta be chocolate.

Three cakes from Pinterest were sent to me as inspiration (this one, this one, and this one), and I started looking at cakes and sketching ideas.

I decided to to do a tall log on its side, and to do the outside log detail out of chocolate fudge frosting, and to fill it with mocha filling. The cake would be chocolate, of course!

It was 6 layers tall, and so needed some simple engineering to keep it from collapsing from its own weight. I used dowel rods to support the top three layers on their board.

I kept the cake extremely cold or frozen during the stacking and crumb coat.

I used a small offset spatula to add the grooves in the bark, and added accents of light brown with remaining mocha frosting.

The top was the lighter brown mocha, with the rings added using small round tip, then smudged slightly.

A little green was spackled on too, to look like moss. Hunter green leaves (I used a Wilton #352 tip) added interest on the sides and fastened the toadstools on the cake.

Yep, that’s a real slice of wood as the cake stand! A piece of parchment paper protected the  cake (and eaters!) from splinters. 🙂

I made little toadstools out of marshmallow fondant, let the the caps and stems dry separately overnight, then painted the caps with Wilton red frosting color. Half of a toothpick helped support the toadstools, and white frosting glued them together and was piped on in polka dots. I really liked the color that they added.

Bunting(made by the crafty mommy) and a cute little fox garden pick completed the look.

The guest of honor was very happy  with the cake. 🙂

Chocolate and coffee- one of my favorite combinations!