This week saw a new opportunity for me, I was given free reign on a cake! I've had a bake scheduled for this week for a few months now with Free Cakes For Kids, an awesome charity here in England that provides home baked cakes for children who wouldn't get one otherwise. Mostly they are children living in poverty, referred by Health Visitors or Social Workers, sometimes they are teens in supported living or in care. For most mums, it's hard to imagine celebrating your child's birthday without a cake, but for some of these children, the cakes they get from FCFK are the first birthday cakes they've ever had.
Each area has a co-ordinator, who recruits volunteer bakers. When she receives a referral, she sends out an email asking if anyone can bake it. Then the baker gets in touch with the family to discuss a theme and cake flavour, bakes the cake and drops it off. The baker either donates the ingredients and materials, or the co-ordinator helps out with the costs if necessary. Being a regular baker I always have a full cupboard of baking goodies so I'm happy to donate my time and ingredients.
For this bake, I spoke to the parents a week before the birthday to find out if the birthday boy likes any particular shows, sports, colours etc. What flavour cake they prefer, any allergies/dietary needs to consider. The remit was 'he likes In The Night Garden and Thomas The Tank Engine, everything else we don't mind - you choose!'
I've baked two Thomas the Tank Engine cakes for FCFK already, but I've never baked In The Night Garden, so that was one decision made. I looked online at other bakers cakes and found gorgeous cakes, very elaborate with fondant figures and a lot of detail. I was tempted to go down this route, but after a family holiday my energy levels are low and my health problems are flaring up, so I needed something that wasn't going to be tough on my hands.
I saw these cupcakes on Pinterest...
...and thought why don't I make a big cake like that? I've not tried cake carving yet, it would give me the chance to try, so the idea was born.
I used a standard Victoria sponge recipe to make two 10" round sponge cakes. Then I made a batch of vanilla buttercream (200g butter, 400g icing sugar, 1tsp vanilla, enough milk to achieve the right consistency).
Oooh, did I mention this little beauty?
My old mixer was very cheap, and straining under the effort of mixing endless bowls of buttercream! I saved up my Nielsen points and got this stunner. I love it. In a slightly unhealthy way.
Anyway, back to the tute.
I sandwiched the layers with buttercream and strawberry jam.
Then it was time to start carving. There's a few ways of doing this.
- You can draw your shape on paper or card and put it on top of your cake as a template.
- You can draw your design on the top of your cake with a skewer.
- You can do it by eye with a great big knife and hope it's right.
If you've read previous posts then you can probably guess my method. I loaded up a picture of Iggle Piggle on my phone and got a good sharp serated knife out.
My round cake only needed two cuts. Firstly, trim the right side to make the head thinner but still rounded, like this -
Secondly, the left side needs a more complicated 'S' shape cut to get the head shape right like this -
If you have a partner or kids around, make them happy by giving them the off cuts. Or eat them yourself. I'm not a cake fan, so my partner kindly ate mine for me. You should now have a cake shaped like this -
Use the rest of the buttercream to crumb coat the top and sides, and leave to harden. I left mine overnight, as I tend to bake one day and decorate the next.
Because I was leaving the cake overnight, I made the 'hair' for Iggle next to give it time to harden. These are really simple, they are bright red fondant, about 150g, split into four pieces by eye. I rolled each piece into a sausage about 1&1/2" long, and inserted a cocktail stick into one end. These need time to harden so that once we put them into the cake they hold their shape.
Get your fondant ready, you're going to need a good size ball of the lighter blue to cover most of the cake.
To make sure the fondant has something to adhere to, warm up some smooth jam and paint it on with a pastry brush.
Firstly, roll out the lighter blue so that is will cover most of the cake.
Pick it up with your rolling pin and lay it over the cake.
Trim the top where the darker fondant will sit, and do a first trim around the base.
Then, use your hands to mould the fondant to the shape of the cake. The warmth of your hands will help the fondant to sit properly. After this you can use a smoothing tool to rub over it, and neaten up the bottom edge.
Roll out the darker blue, and fit that to the cake in the same way. You'll need to fit it to the seam of the light blue icing. I did this by overlaying it slightly, and then using a very sharp knife to cut the straight edge. I worked it together with my fingertips, then used a wet paintbrush to seal it.
Finish up the bottom edge of the fondant, where it meets the cake board, firstly with the smoother and then with a sharp knife. I also use the sharp knife to gently scrape off any buttercream or icing sugar that is visible. Wipe off the board with a piece of paper towel.
If there are any cracks or marks in the fondant, rub your finger gently in circles over them and they will fade and disappear. Be patient!
Roll a ball of the lighter blue fondant for Iggle's nose and stick it down with a dab of water. Roll out some white icing and cut two circles for eyes, stick down with water.
Roll out some black icing for the pupils and cut out smaller circles, sticking them in place with water.
Using a sharp knife or modelling tool, draw a smile, making sure to brush away any crumbs.
Take the red hair pieces, and insert the cocktail sticks into the cake on a 45 degree angle near the top edge.
Now all it needs is a dust off, and a blast of shimmer spray.
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