A birthday cake for 90 years (and a kitchen full of old and new)

My grandfather turned 90. A feat more incredible because of everything he has gone through--both mentally and physically. He lived during the depression years and worked hard as a young boy. He was drafted into the army during WWII with reconnaissance forces, regularly crossing into enemy territory. He was captured by the Germans on Christmas day in 1944 and remained there for four months until the camp was liberated by the Russians, just in time to save his frozen and starving body. In spite of all this, he's never lost his smile or his joy. And he passes that on to everyone he meets.

To try to make a cake worthy of his 90th birthday would be impossible. But I did want to try to do something special and personal, so I made a painting of his face with chocolate as the main decoration.

I came across the idea here: http://eyecandy.nanakaze.net/?p=313

It's an amazing technique and so fun to do. It works surprisingly well. I will have to experiment with types of chocolate, as the white chocolate I used sort of separated and caused an unevenness in tone.

The hardest part is getting the three tones just right. On the link I provided above, there is a great video on how to accomplish this with photoshop. Next, all you need are wax paper, tape (to hold the picture and wax paper in place), chocolate, and toothpicks. 

I found that making a little pool of chocolate on the side and dipping my toothpick into it, like dipping a paintbrush into paint, worked well for the very detailed portions.

Watch your ratio of dark chocolate to white chocolate to get the mid tone. I started with a 1:1 ratio, but quickly learned that you only need a small amount of dark chocolate compared to white to give it a good middle tone. 

Once the final, white layer has been painted on, let it completely harden. I found that I didn't need to refrigerate it for this to happen, but if you do this in summer, you may need to. The chocolate peels off the wax paper fairly easily. Some sites suggest greasing the wax paper before putting any chocolate on it, but I didn't find it necessary.

I'll definitely be using the chocolate painting technique again. It was a great way to make the cake really special for him--and he got to take his "face" home with him to snack on later. : )

It's been a special time for me to be able to cook in the same kitchen that my grandparents cooked in and to be able to do something nice for one of them. My grandmother would have gotten a kick out of seeing this--a mix of old and new, both her and I, in the home she loved.