CHOCOLATE CAKE WITH ROSES RECIPES

Steps:

• Preheat the oven to 160C/fan140C/gas 3. Grease and base line a 20cm round, deep cake tin with baking paper. Put the milk in a jug and add the vinegar Ã?¢Ã?Â?Ã?Â? it will curdle. Melt the chocolate in a large bowl set over a pan of simmering water, making sure the bottom of the bowl doesn't touch the water. Stir until smooth.
• Add the butter and remaining cake ingredients plus the milk mixture to the melted chocolate. Beat until smooth, then tip into the tin. Bake for 1 1/4-1 1/2 hours or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Cool in the tin for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack and cool completely.
• Using a bread knife, halve the cake horizontally. Sprinkle the cut sides with sherry or Marsala, if using.
• Melt the chocolate and butter in a pan over a low heat. Stir until smooth, then remove from the heat. Cool for a few minutes, then beat in the cream. Set aside to thicken slightly.
• To decorate, use a quarter of the icing to sandwich the 2 cake halves together. Spread the remaining icing over the top and sides of the cake. Decorate with rose flower or fondant petals to serve.

Steps:

• Preheat oven to 180°C (approximately 350°F). Line 28, 22 and 16 cm (approximately 11, 8 and 6 inch) diameter springform pans with baking parchment. For the medium and small cake layers, melt chocolate. Beat egg whites and a third of the sugar until stiff. Beat egg yolks, remaining sugar, butter, and vanilla until fluffy. Stir chocolate into egg yolk mixture, then fold in egg white mixture and almonds. Sift flour over batter and fold in with a whisk. Spread batter into medium and small pans and bake until cakes test done with a toothpick, about 50 minutes. Remove cakes from oven and let cool briefly, then remove cakes from pans and let cool completely. Repeat instructions with ingredients and pan for large cake layer, baking until cake tests done with a toothpick, about 1 hour 30 minutes.
• Cut each cake horizontally into two layers. Mix sugar syrup, Calvados and orange liqueur and sprinkle over cut surfaces of cake layers. Mix apricot jam with about 50 ml (approximately 1/4 cup) water, boil and strain through a sieve. Spread jam mixture over bottom layers of cakes and set top cake layers over bottom layers. Thinly spread remaining jam mixture over tops and sides of cakes. 
• With food coloring, dye about 50 grams (approximately 1 3/4 ounces) marzipan pale green and set aside. Dye remaining marzipan pale pink. On a surface lightly dusted with powdered sugar, roll some pink marzipan into sheets about 5 mm (approximatley 1/4 inch) thick. Cover cakes with marzipan sheets and place cakes on plates of the same diameters.
• Press cake dowels into cakes to stabilize layers, cutting dowels to match cake heights if necessary. Carefully remove cakes from plates and stack cakes together largest to smallest, using more cake dowels to stabilize.
• For the rose decorations, roll some pink marzipan thinner and cut enough petal shapes for one rose. Form three hazelnut-sized balls from marzipan for rosebuds. Layer petals, offseting slightly, onto one bud. Press bases gently to secure and fold petals slighty outward. Knead remaining pink marzipan and use food coloring to dye darker pink. Make two more roses from darker pink marzipan. Knead remaining darker pink marzipan and roll into two strands 5 mm (approximately 1/4 inch) thick and four strands 1 cm (approximately 1/2 inch) thick. Twist matching pairs of strands together into cords.
• Using beaten egg whites to attach  marzipan decorations to cake, set thinner cord around base of smallest cake layer. Set larger cords around bases of middle and large cake layers. Attach roses on top cake. Knead green marzipan, roll out and cut into leaf shapes. Attach marzipan leaves around roses.