The Piano!

This was for a housewarming party for someone who knows how to play the piano, so I thought I'd do something different! Inspired by an idea from a baking magazine, this chocolate cake is frosted with ganache, the ebony-ivory is made of licorice and white chocolate. The cake base is my basic chocolate cake.

To make the piano body, I used two small loaf tins to bake two rectangular pieces of cake.

Cut tops off to make them evenly shaped

Place one on top of the other

And if you cut the top part lengthwise, (just the top cake), one half of this trimming could be used of the piano chair

But since it didn't look straight i just halved the 'chair' too!

Frost body with ganache (made by heating 400g thick cream and 250g chocolate - although i had heaps of leftover).

To make the piano keys :

Melt white chocolate and spread on baking paper

- not too thick to decrease chances of it cracking when cutting, but not too thin to give it a bit more dimension (you know, when looking at the keys). Let cool. To cut these up, dip a sharp knife in hot water and slice one inch by 1/4 in.

Cut licorice into 8 parts (or to desired length).

Arrange white chocolate and licorice on the lower part of the frosted cake.

I find that the white chocolate would go 'limp' quite easily (or perhaps its just because of the recent hot weather!) so had to refrigerate the whole cake until it had to be transported.

This was fun!