Long Live the Dessert Crew!

Pssst... hey you! Yeah, you, over there, wondering what the heck fondant is anyway... Want to know how you can score samples of all the fine dessert menu items that will be at Lee & Marsha's wedding? (I mean before the actual wedding, and without being one of my co-workers.) Well, it's simple: sign up for the Dessert Crew!

So that's what the dessert menu goodies all look like, waiting for the wonderful Dessert Crew volunteers to dig in during a meeting of the aforementioned Crew at Lee & Marsha's place.
L to R: Siren's Chocolate Cake with Creamy Bittersweet Chocolate Frosting (cut into little sample portions and decorated), Lemon Sorbet in Lemons, Heath Bar Cookies, and Brownie Cookies. I'll serve a Yellow Cake too, but I didn't make samples of that this time.

Long live the Dessert Crew! And there was much rejoicing.
Thanks to Carrie, Kathleen, Kimberly, Jill, and Vanessa for being reliable, detail-oriented, courageous people! Together, we're going to present a truly marvelous dessert spread. And there was even more rejoicing.

Details of the cake:
One batch Siren's Chocolate Cake, one 9" x 13" layer, about 1.6" tall.
Used 4.7 oz. of Lindt 70%, instead of the 4 oz in the recipe, which worked exceedingly well.

Syruped with 1/4 cup Kahlua.

Used Magi-Cake strips (the Wilton knock-off ones) and rose nail.

Torted into 2 layers.

Total height: about 2".

Used 1 batch of Creamy Milk Chocolate Frosting from Baking Illustrated, with 3.5 oz Lindt 70% and the other 6.5 oz Nestle Semi-sweet chips. Odd, but true.

Fondant dyed with Wilton's gel colors.

Fondant made a few weeks before decorating. (Used up a pre-mixed color.)
Cake made 4 days before serving. Syruped when cool, prior to storage. Stored in 'fridge.
Cake layers torted and assembled 2 days before serving.
Cake decorated earlier the day it was served.

Bottom line:
Good thing the Lindt outlet is having a sale on their 70% bars. I sure stocked up when I saw how lovely it made the cake and frosting. All chocolate cake people seemed pleased, especially the bride and dessert crew. The cake stayed so moist that it sort of melted the fondant in subsequent days.
Note about the purple fondant color: it bleeds out to blue within 24 hours! Be careful!
The Dessert Crew people are fantastic, and I'm so excited to work with all of them!