PRESENT CAKE

PREP + COOK TIME 3 HOURS SERVES 20

EQUIPMENT deep 15cm round cake pan deep 23cm square cake pan

15cm round prepared cake board 30cm square prepared cake board 3 bamboo skewers

2 medium piping bags fitted with

medium plain tubes tracing wheel (see tips)

CAKE

3 x 470g packets butter cake mix ½ cup (160g) apricot jam,

warmed, sieved blue, yellow and pink food colouring 1 quantity royal icing

(recipe on page 117)

DECORATIONS

1.5kg ready-made white fondant icing ½ cup (80g) pure icing sugar, to dust

1 Preheat oven to 150°C/130°C fan. Grease and flour round and square pans. 2 Make cake according to directions on packet. Pour mixture into pans until each is three-quarters full; bake round cake for 1 hour and square cake for 1¼ hours or until a skewer inserted into centres comes out clean. Stand cakes in pans for 10 minutes; turn, top-side up, onto wire racks to cool.

3 Level cakes to the same height; turn round cake, cut-side down, onto small cake board. Turn square cake, cut-side down onto large cake board. Secure cakes to boards with a little jam. Brush cakes all over with jam.

4 Knead ready-made icing on surface dusted with sifted icing sugar until icing loses its stickiness.

5 Tint two-thirds of the icing blue. Roll icing on sugared surface until large enough to cover square cake. Using a rolling pin, lift icing over cake; smooth with sugared hands. Trim neatly around base. 6 Reserving an apple-sized portion of the remaining icing for the bow, tint the rest yellow. Roll icing to a round shape large enough to cover round cake. Using rolling pin, lift icing over cake; smooth with sugared hands. Trim around base.

7 Insert trimmed bamboo skewers into centre of square cake to support round cake (Step A). Position round cake on skewers (Step B).

8 Tint half the royal icing yellow; tint remaining icing pink. Spoon yellow royal icing into one of the piping bags; pipe dots around square cake. Spoon pink icing into remaining piping bag; pipe dots around round cake.

9 Tint reserved icing pink. Roll out icing to about 20cm x 45cm and 4mm thick; cut into three strips. Use a tracing wheel to mark edges of ribbon. 10 Turn two of the strips over, brush lightly with water. Using image opposite as a guide, drape damp side of strips over cakes.

11 Cut remaining strip in half, then fold into bow shapes (Step C), joining loops with water. Place shapes on their sides on a tray lined with baking paper; stand overnight to dry. Reserve scraps. Position bow shapes on cake; use a scrap of icing to make middle of bow.

STEPS

A Insert the skewers in the bottom cake, right through to the cake board, so that the top cake can be supported by them. Trim the skewers so that they are level with the top of the bottom cake. Position the skewers.

B Sit the top tier on the skewers. There will be a small gap between the two cakes, but this can be covered with icing or decorations. Remove the top tier, using a metal spatula, before cutting the cakes.

C Gently press ends of icing strips together to create a bow; use scraps of icing to make the middle part of the bow, see picture opposite.

A

C

B