A colleague in work asked me if I would like to bake her a cake for her partners 50th in the shape of a Newcastle football shirt.

I looked into getting a Wliton T-Shirt shaped tin but found (a) they are discontinued – why?! (b) cake shops on the internet don’t hire tins over the web (c) my local trusty cake shop have shaped tins but not in the shape of a t-shirt. I thought it was going to be a bit easier but hey ho shaping the cake was the only way to go.

I hired a 10″ square tin and the cake ended up being approximately 10″ by 9″ so I didn’t waste too much cake.

I had asked Anthony to print off a template for me to use but for one reason or another he could get it printed to the right size so I had to free-style a template based on the smaller one.  I have to say though, I was happy with the size and shape.

The cake was filled with raspberry jam and buttercream then had a buttercream layer applied to help stick the icing on.  I had to roll out the icing for the cake as well, in the past I have managed to get away with a pre-rolled icing but the cake was far too big for that!

I had invested in an icing smoother & was happy with the results – I think it was noticeably smoother, shiny icing.

Then I covered it in black stripes.  Again I free-styled the first one and traced around it to make the other one the same.  The middle strip and sponsor badge completed the design.

The cake made it to work for the handover after a 40 minute drive into Chester. Nervewracking! I just hope it tasted nice when it was eaten yesterday.

We took Elodie to Chester Zoo on her birthday and she seemed to enjoy herself… I think the monkeys were her favourite.  Here is the birthday girl with her balloon…

We also went out for a meal to Simon Rimmers restaurant Earle in Altrincham… it was really nice if a bit far to trek from the Wirral but we all enjoyed some delicious food & a nice time was had by all.

Anyway, here are is the cake (I was up until midnight last Saturday making the icing guitar)

We had a small family party on her Birthday to celebrate and of course, she had a Birthday cake too. It was themed on her wallpaper – delicate girly butterflies & flowers (sparkly of course, but that doesnt show very well in the pics).  It was another traditional madeira sponge with jam & buttercream with white regalice.

I did not get a chance to make the usual Christmas cake so my Mum made the cake and I offered to ice it. This is my third Christmas cake and I reverted back to a traditional Holly decoration… simple but I quite like it.

After a few ideas (like making a cake model of a Mini!) I decided it was best to keep it simple. I already had a silicone rectangular cake tin, so based on that, I thought a simple sponge with white icing, a 30 in black icing which would be the track and a mini cooper cake topper. How easy…

First of all I needed to find a firm sponge so I tested out a Madeira recipe from a cake decorating book I have. It worked well and Anthony even did a taste test for me under the guise that it had come from my mums work! hehe…

Next, I wanted to make my own icing. So after taking over my mum and dads kitchen and covering it in icing sugar I came to the conclusions I wouldn’t be able to (a) make a piece big enough to cover the cake/roll it out to an even thickness or (b) get it from the worktop to the cake (it was rather sticky!). I decided quite quickly that I’d use a ready rolled fondant icing instead.

Making the cake
I made the madeira sponge 3 days before the big day and the sponge turned out well. After leaving it overnight I turned up at my mum and dads house (our kitchen is too small) ready for some cake decorating… with my mum looking after Elodie I set about triming the sponge (cakes in silicone tins splay out at the sides!). Triming the cake was a time consuming and delicate job as I was scared a huge chunk of cake would come off!

Once I’d managed to make the cake more rectangular I set about splitting it in half and filling it with a thin layer of raspberry jam and buttercream. With a little help from my mum we managed to put the cake back together in one piece.

Next, I covered the cake in a very small amount of warmed marmalade to allow the icing to stick and started to ice it… I have to admit at the point I was rather lucky with the ready roll icing – I could only get a circular one which just fitted over the rectangular cake with a little nip and tuck ;)

I had bought a block of pre-coloured black fondant icing. With some careful rolling out I cut out my 30 and with my mums help again, we transferred the numers to the cake (they were very flimsy!).

It had taken a few hours to get to this point! So I was relieved to put the finishing touches to the cake (white icing for road markings and a black ribbon to hide the bottom of the icing!) and we put it away in a cake tin until his birthday.

Anthony seemed to like his cake but I think he enjoyed the driving experience even more – I thought I was giving him something to pacify his love of Minis when all I seem to have done is make it worse :) Ah well…

Here are some pictures of the cake and one of Anthony enjoying his present…

I had intended on following Bill Granger’s recipe for Lamingtons themselves but the sponge mix didn’t set and with 6 eggs in it I wasn’t overly surprised. So after a quick re-think I whizzed up a batch of Nigella’s trusty cupcakes and then topped each with lamington icing.

I wont bore you with the cupcake recipe now I’ll just tell you about the chocolatey topping…

Ingredients (to top 12 cupcakes)

• 50g dark chocolate
• 125g icing sugar
• 5g butter
• 30ml milk
• 60g desiccated coconut

Method

1. Put icing sugar, chocolate, milk and butter in a heatproof bowl & melt over a simmering pan of water
2. Put the coconut on a plate
3. Dip each cupcake into the melted icing mix, ensure each cake has a generous coating
4. Dip into the coconut
5. Leave to dry