Castle Cake...part II

Onto putting it all together, set aside about 3 hours and kick everyone out of the house.

For the fondant I used marshmallow fondant which was a doddle to make. Basically it is 1 part marshmallows to 2 parts icing sugar and for every 100g of marshmallows use 1 tbsp of water. For this cake I used 4 bags of marshmallows and nearly 1kg of icing sugar (sounds awful when you see it written down, but a birthday is just once a year!) I had to melt the marshmallows in batches and poured it all into a really big bowl. I read that you *have* to use a certain brand of marshmallows but I just used what was in the supermarket and they worked out fine.

• In a big bowl melt 100g of marshmallows in the microwave, I put it on high for about 30 seconds.
• When it is melted add the water and stir the add the icing sugar little by little until it it forms a dough. I read about adding the colour once it is a dough but I added mine in with the water.
• Knead it until it becomes smooth, this took me quite a while because it was such a big lump.
• Wrap in airtight bag until you are ready to use it.

The next step was to make butter cream, I just beat butter and icing sugar together, I didn't weigh it, sorry, there are a lot recipes out there.  So, then I took out the sponges from the freezer and cut the top of the sponges so they were flat and would stack together well. Then I put a thin layer of butter cream over the sponges and left it to dry a little. Then I started on the towers, I used two swiss roll cakes that I bought and cut them in half. Dust the work surface with icing sugar, roll out the fondant, put some buttercream on one end of the roll cake then place it on the fondant and cut around it, this is the top of the tower. I wish I had taken pictures now! Then I cut a strip a bit wider than the height of the roll cake and cut out sections to make the battlements. Cover the roll with buttercream and wrap the fondant around it, stick the little over lap down with a little water, repeat with the rest of the towers.

Are you still with me? Roll out the rest of the fondant then lay it over the main part of the cake, smooth it out and trim off the access along the bottom. Use bamboo skewers and push three into each corner of the main cake and then push the towers on to the skewers, this will hold them steady. I then cut a long strip to place around the top of the cake and to hide the join where the towers meet the main cake, use a bit of water to stick it into place. It is a bit wonky but it is an old castle, lol.

To make the drawbridge I added a bit more food colour to make it brown, how come when kids mix colours they always make brown but when I tried it took forever? I rolled it out and cut out a square and drew some wood grain in with a knife, added a couple of cross pieces, glued together with water and pushed some yellow 'hundreds and thousands' to make the bolts, then used water to glue the drawbridge to the wall.

The moat was the left over rolled out fondant and I painted it with blue food colour and the boulders are just rolled lumps of fondant stuck on with water and very popular with little people.

I finished it off by painting on the bricks and arrow slits. Phew.

Questions?