coffee chiffon cake with dark chocolate sail sculpture

I love to make birthday cakes for my friends, and at one point last year I became obsessed with making chocolate sculptures to decorate my birthday cakes with! I had seen it all over Instagram and fell in love with the way they added such artistry to cakes, in such a free-form and abstract way. 

The first of many chocolate sculpture cakes that I ended up making throughout the year, this one was for my friend Hsing, who I met at work years and years ago. At the time we were the only females on our team, and although we are no longer at the same company, we still make it a point to meet for lunches several times throughout the year.

I typically make chiffon cakes for Hsing, since she she likes the type of light and airy cake that you can commonly find at Asian bakeries. This time I decided to make a coffee chiffon cake, filled and frosted with espresso whipped cream.

I typically do a crumb coat of frosting, then let it chill in the fridge for at least a half our, before adding a second coat of frosting and smoothing it out completely with an offset spatula.

While the assembled and frosted cake chilled in the fridge, I got started on making the topper. In a double boiler, I melted dark chocolate with a bit of coconut oil, and then poured it out onto a baking sheet lined with a silicone liner. Then I positioned the silicone liner insde of a glass bowl, using binder clips to secure it in a way that would provide an interesting shape to the chocolate.

Once the chocolate had cooled, I removed the binder clips and carefully removed the silicone liner, giving me a chocolate sculpture!

I secured it to the top of the cake with a bit of the espresso whipped cream, and then it was done!

I love the simplicity of this type of decorative cake topper, plus it's edible!

Hope you had a Happy Birthday, Hsing!