Need help from any cake makers out there!!

Kimmywim

Hi there its my daughters 1st birthday on saturdau and i wanted to attempt to make a cake like this...


http://www.coolest-birthday-cakes.com/childrens-birthday-cake-recipe.html#c1

so I have a couple of questions!!

1. if i make a chocolate sponge can i freeze this, and if i can how long before i need to ice it would i need to defrost it.

2. if i make it tommorow and iced it tommorow as well would it keep til the party on saturday?

3. what is the best way to ice it, i was thinking ready to roll icing but how on earth do you ice over that sort of shape!?

4. not really keen on marzipan, can i ice the cake without this??


many thanks for your advice

kim x

ka7e

If you bake tomorrow (Thur), and keep the cake in an airtight tin, it should be fine for Saturday. Make sure it has thoroughly cooled and separate pieces with sheets of greaseproof paper.
You can use buttercream icing ( best if made with a mixer, beat it until it's white and creamy), but I wouldn't ice it until Fri/Sat. Buttercream won't give a smooth finish, but looks quite nice left "choppy".

Gingernutmeg

The cake in the picture has been iced with buttercream, which has been 'combed' and piped on. This is fairly easy to do but I wouldn't do it until friday, as buttercream can go a bit crispy if you leave it too long. It's not a problem, but some people don't like it.

You could use ready roll, it would be quite easy to do as you'd have to do the bottom 'three' blocks separately from the top - you could try to do it all in one bit it's a bit of an odd shape to get really neat. Then you'd have to pipe on the decorations with either buttercream or royal icing. The advantage to this is that the royal icing would last longer so you *could* do it today or tomorrow, but personally I don't think it eats as well and I'd be a bit wary of giving something so hard and lumpy to very little children.

You don't need marzipan on a sponge cake. As long as you used a fairly thick layer of buttercream as a 'base' for icing and you don't overfill the cake with jam, there should be no problem. Again, I'd leave the marzipan off anyway if I ws giving the cake to young children, some might be allergic and lots don't like it.

Also, if you can get hold of some paste food colouring rather than the liquids then you'll get a much better finished effect. You'll get stronger colours and you won't run the risk of ruining the buttercream by adding too much liquid. Also, I've found the paste colours are less likely to run when you're icing buttercream onto buttercream and leaving it a while.