Practicing the Wedding cake Covering

As you might know I've got high hopes to make my own wedding cake. I was inspired by a Martha Stewart idea where instead of messing about with trying to get smooth buttercream or putting on horrible tasting fondant. In this recipe you make a sort of choclate wood grain siding. This is my second attempt at it and while making a plank is easy getting the wood grain clear is a bit trickier. This was made with white chocolate ganache and then dark chocolate. I unfortunately dropped some water on it (from the bottom of the double boiler) as I was putting on the layers so the top one you can see the shape of 3 drops dissolving the wood grain.

I've obviously still got some work to do to get it perfect. But even at this state (only my 2nd try) I'm sure I can make something very lovely and impressive!