A Christmas Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Covered Strawberries

What a lovely cake, even if I do say so myself!  :)  Melena asked for a Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Covered Strawberries for her upcoming Christmas party.  With my favorite book- yes you know the one - "The Cake Book" by Tish Boyle, in hand I got to work.  For this project I knew I had to use the Deeply Dark Devil's Food Cake recipe, and then I layered it with Chocolate Whipped Cream (ohhh sweet bliss!!).  I made two and a half recipes of the cake and doubled the whipped cream recipe, then I topped it with her fabulous Fudgy Chocolate Frosting, this I tripled because I wanted to make sure I had plenty of frosting for the decorative piping.

Here is the cake unadorned, but fully frosted.

A close up looking down at the cake.  I was experimenting with shell piping, star piping, loops along the top and rosettes along the bottom.  The bottom tier has three 9inch layers of cake, and two of whipped cream.  The top tier has two 6inch layers of cake, and one of whipped cream.

Side view of the cake from my kitchen table.

Here are some of my chocolate covered strawberries.  Thank you to my CA MOPS because there I became an expert at making chocolate covered strawberries at our annual fundraisers!  :)

Strawberries, yummy.

I assembled the cake at Melena's house, just before her party started.  The cake pedestal is hers.  Perfect for this cake and I do have a little pedestal envy- that is one beautiful pedestal.  I carefully placed each strawberry around the cake, and it was perfectly lovely.

Merry Christmas Melena!

I love your comments and I want to say hello to my new followers!!  :)  Blessings, Rachel