Let There Be a Pile o' Cake

I have been honored with the request to make a wedding cake and groom's cake for the marriage of klwilliams and desperance in April. My orders are: chocolate beetroot cake with Swiss meringue buttercream frosting for 100; and a fruitcake with marzipan and fondant, for 20 or so. So today I auditioned two different chocolate beetroot recipes: one with beet puree, the other essentially a carrot cake recipe with the carrots swapped out for beets, the crushed pineapple swapped for melted chocolate, and the cinnamon swapped for dark cocoa.

The pureed-beet cake is really good, very very moist...but it's not sturdy enough to hold up to a three or four layer stack. The fresh-beet cake is also really good. I may tinker with the recipe a bit, but I think that's the one to go with.

And I made some preliminary stabs at fondant toppers.

I will probably become a bore about this cake, but...it's cake. And frosting and fondant and marzipan. License to Frost!