what if you just put a layer of icing in the middle of the cake and then cover it with something smooth? or leave the chips out of the icing, but use them in the decorating so they are still there, but won't mess up the decorating.
Don't ice the whole cake with chocolate chips. Make a filling that has chocolate chips in it. Put a large bead of icing around the outside edge of the bottom layer, fill with chocolate chip filling, put top layer on and ice the rest with regular frosting. Then decorate as desired. HTH
For my sister's shower I made a large slab cake and used a 3D egg shape cake to make a bassinet to go on top.. You cut out part of the egg to look like a bassinet, then I used a small cupcake for the baby's sleeping head in the bassinet. I decorated everything to match the bedding set she registered for. It was pretty cute and not as complicated as I've made it seem here, I'm just not that good at describing how to do it.
Re: Shower Cake Help!
pp's cupcake idea made me think of a fish birthday cake I saw on pinterest
the top was a round cake then underneath it on tiers were cupcakes
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