- A 3 tiered sponge cake
- The top tier had to be a love heart
- It had to be adorned with sugar flowers
- It had to say 'Happy Birthday Tina'
The rest was up to me and here is the final product....
I was exhausted when I finished this cake. So much time and love went into creating it. In total it took me over 2 months to prep, constant colour scheme changes, various chats with one of my colleagues who loves baking and various trips to my local baking shop for tips and ideas!
I had also made my grandads 80th cake the week prior, so for never doing anything like this before, I had really jumped in head first. Just like my grandads 80th cake, I started off with deciding a theme. I have never met this lady and I don't know her personality, so I kept to white icing and pastel colours. Nothing too bold. For the ribbon I went for a pastel green colour, shrinking in size with each layer. Deciding on the colours of the pastels and the ribbon did take quite a long time, as trying to match what powders I could buy, varying size in ribbons and lettering was quite time consuming.
Next my attention turned to the sponge cake. I tried and tested various sponge cake recipes from Mary Berry to Good Food to other baking bloggers views from the depths of the internet in order to achieve which recipe best suited each layer. Each layer was a different size with different cooking times which caused quite a few disasters! I tried to cook the bottom layer as an all in one and then cut it in half. However I found the cake quite dense and stank of egg. So after many and various attempts, once again, Jane Asher's Easy Celebration Cakes book comes to the rescue!
I decided to cook the bottom layer as 2 separate sponges. This method meant the sponge was well risen and light, something that was not guaranteed with the all in one method and most certainly didn't reek of egg! Using the same amount of mixture, for one of the bottom layers, the middle layer was an all in one method in a deep tin. Once cooked, the sponge was cut in half to create the 2 layers. Having a deep tin for the middle layer meant that it had a really good rise. Finally, the top tier only required half of the mixture of one of the bottom layers.
For The Sponge
Ingredients for one sponge:
125g Butter
125g Self Raising Flour
125g Caster Sugar
2 Eggs
1 Teaspoon Baking Powder
1) Preheat oven to gas mark 4/180c/fan assisted 160c.
2) For the first layer of the bottom tier (9 inch tin), grease and line the tin. Put all the ingredients into a food processor or bowl and mix with a wooden spoon - or process on high speed - for about 2 minutes, or until smooth. Pour the mixture into the tin.
3) Cook for approx 25/30 mins. Definitely keep an eye on it from the 20 mins mark. It may only need 25 mins or it could need 35 mins. Once cooked, place on wire wrack to cool.
4) For the middle tier, grease and line the tin and using the same amount of sponge mixture again, repeat stage 2 and 3. Once cooled, cut the cake in half using a cake slicer.
5) For the second bottom tier (9 inch tin) grease and line the tin and using the same amount of sponge mixture again, repeat stage 2 and 3.
6) For the top love heart tier, grease and line the tin. Half all the ingredients and repeat stage 2 and 3. Be careful not to overfill the tin with mixture- only go to about half way, you will have mixture left over. Even though the tin is considerably smaller, it still needed at least 20 mins in the oven for me - if ever in doubt use a metal poker and place it in the cake, if it comes out clean then its ready. Once cooled, cut the cake in half with a cake slicer.
Now you have your required sponge cakes.
For the Butter Cream
4) Put the butter into a bowl with the milk and mix together. Beat in the sifted icing sugar a little at a time, until the mixture is light and creamy. You can store this in an airtight container in the fridge until needed.Bring to room temperature before using.
6) Spread the butter cream on the bottom layer and then top with jam. Gently place the top layer onto the bottom layer and cover the top and sides in butter cream. Repeat with the middle and top layer. Leave to set - I left mine over night in a cold room.
Assembly
7) Take the butter creamed sponges out of the cold room and let them slightly warm up to room temperature. For the royal icing, I used ready rolled icing from Dr Oetker - my preferred ready rolled icing. Unroll the icing very gently and using a rolling pin, lift it up and gently place it down on the cake. Using your hands smooth down the sides fixing the icing into place. I used an icing smoother/polisher to achieve the sharp clean sides and top, gently apply pressure and work your way around the cake. Once satisfied, cut around the bottom of your cake. Repeat with the middle layer and top layer.
8) Gently place each tier on top of the other and place a ribbon around the edge. Fasten at the back with pins, gently pushing them into the cake. Try and get the pins in a nice neat line going down the middle back of the cake.
Decoration
9) Time to decorate. Obviously decorate the cake in which ever way you want. But I started with the 'Happy Birthday Tina' lettering on the middle layer. I cannot pipe at all, so using plastic letters was the next available option. I bought mine from Cake Craft World. Using edible glue, I glued each letter to the cake. I started with 'Birthday' as that was the focal point in the middle of the cake, once I had that glued down I moved onto 'Happy' and 'Tina'. These are definitely fiddly but with some patience I got there.
10) Next was the sugar flowers. Cut off some paste and using a small rolling pin, roll it out. It should be unbelievably thin to the point you can see through it. Using various moulds and cutters, mould your flowers. I used moulds for the Hydrangea flowers and Petunia flowers. You can get them easily online or down your local baking shop.
11) For the moulds, once the paste has been rolled out, using the cutter, cut the flower out, place it onto the mould and press the mould together. Voilà, you have a flower! It really is as simple as that and you don't have to be arty farty to do this!
12) Place the flower onto a foam pad, to allow it to get some body and shape. Once dried, colour your flowers. I used powder for mine. Don't forget, if your making flowers, you NEED to make leaves! Otherwise the cake looks really odd! Plus the leaves bring in extra colour and more dimensions. For this cake I made lots and lots of flowers/leaves as I wanted to be able to pick and chose flowers on the day, plus you have extra if there are any breakages. I think I broke around 5 on the day, which wasn't many, but having so many flowers and leaves prepared really took the stress off.
I used cream coloured paste as the plain white paste is really quite stark. The sugar flowers started at the top right of the cake, along with a butterfly and swirled round to the bottom. Once again, I used edible glue to stick the flours to the cake. Sticking them to ribbon is quite hard, you have to hold the flowers there for quite some time.
Once you have the flowers attached, your cake is done! Time for a cup of tea!
Im so very proud of myself for making this cake. Im not a particularly creative or arty person so I was genuinely surprised at myself!! Although, for a number of days afterwards I told my family and colleagues that I am not baking anything for a while! It has totally put me off!! Which is true It has been over a month since I've baked anything.I am thinking about getting back into baking especially with Easter arriving soon! Who knows, watch this space...
Sarah's Tips
It took me 2 days to make this cake, so don't do this in a rush. The first day consisted of making all the sponges, smothering them in butter cream and jam and then allowing them to set over night. Just baking the sponges took a crazy amount of time to do! The second day consisted of placing on the royal icing and decorations.
On the third day I transported the cake to work. I put it in the foot-well of the passenger side of my car, in a cake box (buy these at your local baking shop) and wrapped a blanket around it. I also took a spare butterfly, flowers, leaves, a paintbrush and some glue, just in-case anything broke on the journey. Thankfully the cake was totally intact!
Have everything absolutely ready. While my first sponge was in the oven, I weighed out everything else for the other 3 sponges! That way I wasn't wasting time constantly re-weighing everything. I also started making the mixture just as the previous sponge in the oven was nearly done, so when that sponge came out the oven another tin went in!
If you are wondering why I baked 1 sponge for the bottom layer, then the middle and then the second sponge for the bottom layer. It was all about time, while the middle sponge was in the oven, I was washing up the bottom layer tin.
If you are struggling to cut your sponge in half with the cake slicer - using the imprint from the slicer, take a bread knife, slice a few centimetres in to get you started, then continue with the cake slicer
For those of you who have a ThermaPen, the correct temperature for a cooked sponge cake is 95 to 98 degrees. You cannot test it when the sponge is still in the oven or by the oven door, you need to move it completely away to get an accurate reading.
If your sponge cake, particularly the heart tier, looks somewhat volcanic, no worries, just cut the top of the sponge off until its nice and flat.
I found on my trial run, the top heart shape tier wasn't so heart shape looking. So using a knife I cut a bigger 'V' into the top of the heart.
Once I had done the butter cream, I put all the sponges into my cold conservatory overnight. This allows the butter cream to harden and set, making it more likely to stick to the royal icing without moving around too much.
Don't worry if your royal icing looks messy around the bottom - the ribbon will hide it!
Equally, if you have any blemishes with the icing, don't place that section as the back of the cake! I accidentally tore some of my icing so I placed that section to the right hand side and covered with flowers! They'll never know!
Which brings me to cut your nails! I nicked my icing with my nails on my grandads 80th cake. So for this cake I cut my nails really short so I couldn't tear the icing!
Put the cake layers on top of each other BEFORE you put on the ribbon and let it sit there for 10 mins. I didn't do this, I put my ribbon on each individual layer and then stacked the sponges... this meant my cake had a slight muffin top!!!
You can make the sugar flowers up to 2 months in advance - keep them in a container, however air must be able to get in. Do not put them in an airtight container as it will cause them to go soft - the total opposite of what you want to happen! I made my flowers within 2 weeks or so prior to the day the cake was made. I also made a surplus amount so when I was decorating the cake I had a choice - plus I broke about 5 flowers on the day, so its always good to have spares! When choosing the theme and colour scheme for the flowers, play around with the different coloured powders. I used more than 1 colour/shade on each flower/leaf and extra sparkles.
Do a full trial run! You need to work out the theme, colour scheme, sponge sizes, sponge cooking times etc. It is incredibly time consuming so leave yourself a lot of time and a chance to to a whole trial run!!!
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