BIRTHDAY CAKE
This striking design is really simple to achieve at home and is ideal if you don’t want to spend hours icing the cake! Hands-on time about 2hr, plus cooling and chilling. Cooking time 1hr 15min. Serves 35-40
◆ 1 quantity of Madeira cake (see Christening Cake recipe on previous page), which makes 2 x 23cm (9in) cakes
Buttercream
◆ 1kg (2lb 3½oz) unsalted butter, softened ◆ 1.8kg (4lb) icing sugar, sifted ◆ 2tbsp vanilla extract ◆ About 6tbsp milk ◆ Food colouring paste, we used Wilton Pink, Violet, Golden Yellow, Creamy Peach and Kelly Green ◆ Long birthday cake candles, optional you will also need ◆ The Kit (see opening page) ◆ Disposable piping bags ◆ 2D closed star, plain 2-3mm and leaf
tip piping nozzles
1 To make the cake, follow the recipe for the Madeira cake (see recipe on page 146) up to the end of step 4. Then make up the buttercream in the quantity above, following step 5 of the Christening Cake, then assemble and crumb coat following steps 6 and 7 of the Christening Cake – use a tilted turntable for this cake if you have one. Set aside and cover 1.2kg (2¾lb) of the remaining buttercream for the floral decoration. Keep at room temperature. 2 When the crumb coat is set firm, remove from the fridge and use the remaining buttercream to completely cover the cake, using a scraper or a palette knife dipped in hot water for a smooth, even finish. Chill the cake again for a further 30min. 3 To make the floral decoration, divide the reserved buttercream into 4 x 250g (9oz) portions and, using a little food colouring paste at a time, colour each to the desired shade – we used pink, purple, yellow and peach for the flowers. Colour the remaining 200g (7oz) portion green for the stems. 4 To decorate, fit 4 piping bags with 2D closed star nozzles (or do this one at a time if you only have one nozzle, washing it thoroughly in between uses). Fill each bag with the different coloured icings, reserving the green for later. You can practise these on a piece of baking parchment (see pictures A and B above) before piping them straight on to the cake. 5 Pipe rosettes on to the side of the cake – squeezing icing to form a tight clockwise swirl (see picture A above) Repeat all the way around, alternating colours and keeping them equally spaced apart. 6 To pipe the stems, fit a piping bag with a plain 2-3mm nozzle, fill with green buttercream and with a steady hand, pipe straight stems from the bottom of each rosette down to the base of the cake. To make leaves, fit a piping bag with a leaf tip nozzle and pipe leaves on to the stems. 7 Keep cake in a cool place for up to 6hr until ready to serve, then insert as many long candles as you like, before serving. PER SERVING (for 40) 606cals, 5g protein, 37g fat (21g saturates), 65g carbs (55g total sugars), 0.9g fibre
GET AHEAD Bake cakes up to 2 days ahead, cool completely then transfer to airtight containers. Decorate up to 6hr ahead and store in a cool place.