FAIRY QUEEN CAKE

PREP TIME 1 HOUR (+ COOLING & SETTING) SERVES 12

EQUIPMENT

30cm round cake board

8cm heart-shaped cookie cutter

CAKE

2 x 600g round caramel mud cakes 453g tub vanilla frosting

DECORATIONS

450g chocolate-chip cookie dough 1 egg white

1½ cups (240g) icing sugar 2 teaspoons plain flour

2 teaspoons lemon juice,

approximately pink food colouring

18 round pink jubes, halved

3 x 49g containers Strawberry

Fields Tic Tacs

2 tablespoons each pink and

pearl cachous

1 To make cookie decorations, preheat oven to 180°C/160°C fan. Roll half the cookie dough between sheets of baking paper until 5mm thick. Remove top sheet of baking paper; slide dough on paper onto an oven tray. Repeat with remaining cookie dough. Bake for about 12 minutes. Remove trays from oven and, working quickly, cut out as many hearts as you can (you need about nine cookies, although this can differ) from warm dough. Discard trimmings. Bake heart cookies for a further 2 minutes. Cool on trays. (You may want to bake one tray at a time.)

2 To make icing for cookies, beat egg white lightly in a small bowl with a fork. Gradually stir in sifted icing sugar and flour until smooth. Stir in enough lemon juice to make icing spreadable. Tint icing pink. Spread icing on top of cookies; using picture as a guide, decorate cookies with jubes, Tic Tacs and cachous before the icing sets. Stand cookies at room temperature until set.

3 Remove icing from tops of mud cakes. Level one cake top so it sits flat; secure cake, cut-side down, on cake board. Spread cake top with ¼ cup frosting; top with remaining cake, rounded side up. Spread all over with remaining frosting.

4 Position remaining jubes, cut side up, around base of cake. Using picture as a guide, secure biscuits with a little frosting, side by side, top to toe, around cake to make crown.