Carved Heart on a Tree Trunk Anniversary Cake

To make this tree trunk anniversary cake, I baked two 10″ round cakes and one 4″ round cake from my favorite bakery style white cake recipe.

A few days before I made 5 gorgeous red roses from chocolate clay. The chocolate clay is made of melted chocolate, 14 oz and 1/4 cup of corn syrup, mixed and wrapped in plastic wrap for at least a day. I also made my marshmallow fondant.

The night before I covered the layers with bright yellow buttercream frosting and then covered the small cake with brown fondant and set the cake aside. I then covered the top of the big cake layers with a circle of fondant and placed the small cake on top. I forgot to stick the kabob sticks into the big cake layers, but it survived!

I rolled small little ‘logs’ after adding a bit more brown, but did not knead it in much so that it gave a wood grain look. I made little balls and rolled them like snakes then gave a little twist. I then used sugar glue to attach the ‘logs’ to the side of the cake.

For the heart area I rolled out a small circle of light brown and then cut the logs to make a heart shape. I made a little outline and placed the cut logs around the outline. Next, I used a knife and carved the initials and used a paint brush to dye the letters with a brown to make them pop. I then rolled a ‘snake’ from the red chocolate clay and added that around the bottom of the little cake on top to hide imperfections. I added my chocolate roses on top.

The next day when I was getting ready to go to the party my 2 year old ate a rose! An hour before the party I had to make a new rose!

The couple raved and the entire time I had people offer kind words of praise. I loved making this cake and if a mom of 4 little ones has time to do this cake, so do you! It was easy to make, but a little consuming.

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