THAT birthday cake

You know the one...hours spent slaving away on a masterpiece that gets gobbled up in minutes.

I decided to make this one slightly special because, after all, it's not every day your little brother turns 16, so rather than the usual sponge cake conjured up last minute and fuelled with the idea that this very cake could compensate for my lack of a present, began designing my pièce de résistance.

The inspiration!

My brother is really into his sports, and i decided to focus on his kayaking, especially as i'd never seen a kayak cake before! Here presented the perfect opportunity to attempt a layer cake, with which i could decorate to make his little marzipan kayak (also named 'Hattie' like his beloved boat) appear to float down a cascading cake-ey waterfall. Simple.


If only! Why did i chose this occasion to experiment? The sponge itself is nice and simple (recipe included below). For basic cakes i usually use Nigella's victoria sponge recipe which is magnificently light and moist, but found that Peggy Porchen's recipe gave a much denser cake, which i would definitely need due to the amount of icing i was using. The cake is made up of 3 layers, so i recommend baking 3 sponges, although it can be made from two. The benefit of making it from 3 is that there is lots of extra sponge to spare, so if you're not an avid icing fan like our family, the sponge can be cut and covered and used for the decoration (although warn that this route is VERY time consuming!).


Basic Victoria Sponge
Makes three 8 inch baking tins or about 50 cup cakes

• Preheat the oven to 200^oC .
• Cream together 400g butter and 400g caster sugar until pale and fluffy.
• Slowly beat in 8 eggs and once combined mix in 400g self-raising flour.
• Add a few drops of vanilla essence and spoon mixture evenly into lined baking tins and bake for around 12-15 minutes.

Buttercream frosting
Makes 500g

• Beat together 250g unsalted butter and 250g icing sugar. 
• Because you won't initially need it all, store in a sealed container in the fridge and bring back to room temperature before use.

If like mine, your sponges aren't perfectly level, it's essential that you cut the tops off them to make them nice and flat and even, otherwise once iced they'll be lopsided and ruin the whole effect. Then it's a case of covering them up with marzipan and Regal-ice. Ready-Roll is definitely the way to go. It's cheap and can be brought at most local store's and saves masses of time in the process.

My 3 sponges (the underside not quite so pretty!)

Sponge 1
Before covering, make sure this one is already placed on the base board, otherwise it's a pain to transfer once decorated and iced!
Cover in a thin layer of apricot jam (or any for that matter, and if it's quite thick still having just come out of the fridge, just add a few drops of water and pop it in the microwave to thin out) then smooth on top the rolled marzipan, and trim to fit. Brush with a little water and layer over the Regal-ice, smoothing out any air pockets as you go.
Sponge 2
You want to cut this one slightly smaller than the base cake, but not too small, otherwise the top cake becomes ridiculously small! Again repeat the process as above. To stack it on top of the other cake, i placed 4 cocktail sticks into the base cake and spread the base of the middle sponge with buttercream (recipe above), then pushed the cake onto the sticks, securing it in place.
Sponge 3
This one can be as small as you like, and the process of covering and stacking is the same as above. I found that the doubled marzipan and Regal-ice effect was a little too heavy and overpowering for the little top cake, so just cut a small marzipan disc for the top of the cake, rather than covering the whole thing.


All of this can be done up to 2 days in advance stored in an air-tight container.


Now, the fun part...

Chunks of sponge for the bigger rocks

the leftovers...

I started with the tree's and rocks, mainly because i was using the leftover sponge and didn't want it to become stale. The rocks (and trees for that matter) aren't too complicated, but take a while if you make a lot of them. Cut up small chunks in varied sizes of the sponge and for the trees cut triangles out. To cover them, i rolled out fondant icing (with plenty of icing sugar spare to avoid the inevitable stickiness!) and added black food colouring to one chunk and green to the other. When rolling them out, don't make the icing too thin because it will easily tare when covering the awkward shapes, which i frustratingly discovered time and time again! Add a little of the watered down jam to the sponge and cover them up. Use small dots of icing (icing sugar and a little water) to stick them to the cake. Then repeat about 30 times!


The waterfall/river is made from the buttercream. If you can, pipe in continuous lines bending and twisting down the cake. Because of the large drops form each cake section, i filled and smoothed them out first with the buttercream to make a smooth 'ramp' down the cake that i could pipe onto. To gain the colouring, dip a cocktail stick into blue/green colouring and gently trail down the icing, being careful not to push too hard.


I became a little obsessed by this stage and really went all out on the details, adding the little marzipan kayak with its paddle, making a 'bear cave' and popped a little marzipan bear poking out from the rocks, a little jumping salmon, and a sign. To get the detail such as paw prints and shading on the trees, you can buy icing markers (Dr Oetker do a reasonably priced set) and they draw onto the cakes a little like a paintbrush. 

So after a whole day (and a bit more..) spent in the kitchen and a horrible mess left everywhere, was it worth it? Definitely! It may get eaten quickly amongst a ravenous family, but seeing the final product can't fail but put a smile on your face, and your efforts will be appreciated!