The Castle Cake...part I

Ebi-kun decided he wanted a knight theme party and at first I thought I would make a cake the same as the football cake but put his jousting set on the top but where is the challenge in that? Then I started dreaming of a castle cake but couldn't decide how to ice it. Fondant icing is NOT popular here, I have seen it for sale in one place and it was sooooo expensive, so buying that was not an option but I didn't fancy the idea of butter icing. Then I stumbled on a recipe for marshmallow fondant but the recipe called for vegetable shortening and I can't get that in the local supermarket and to be honest it didn't sound too tasty. After googling I found another recipe which didn't need shortening so I went with that. Luckily over at Make it and Love it they have been doing a cake decorating series and I picked up some great tips from there.

So, I started with 3 square sponge cakes and because I knew the outside would be grey I asked Ebi-kun what colour sponge he would like (he had no idea what I was making) so he picked the delightful colour combo's....

The sponge cake recipe... this is my fall back recipe, it is one of the first I learnt to make and I have never had a disaster with it....

150g softened unsalted butter

150g caster sugar (in Japan I just use table sugar)

150g flour (SR if you can get it)

3 eggs lightly beaten

1 tsp salt

1 heaped tsp baking powder (not needed if you use SR flour)

food colour

flavourings if you want to add them too, I did it plain.

• Oil and flour your cake tin, mine is 20cm x 20cm
• With a fork, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
• With a wooden spoon, add the eggs, flour, salt and baking powder bit by bit.
• Once it is all mixed in, try not to over beat it put half the mix into another bowl.
• Add the food colour/flavour to each bowl. For the marble cake chocolate and orange is really good. We did yellow + green, red + yellow and blue + red.
• Dollop the two colours into the pan then swirl the colours together so it looks like marble.
• Pop it in the oven at 180∘for about 35 - 40 minutes, when you press it in the middle it should spring back into shape.
• Leave for 10 minutes then turn out, let it cool and then wrap tightly in cling film and stick it in the freezer.

Hmm looks so tasty, lol. It was funny when I cut into it because no one expected all the bright colours.
Tomorrow I will do a post on how I put it all together....