And We Call It Bella Notte

Disney Classic # 15 - Lady and the Tramp

I love looking at photos of cakes, especially novelty cakes, so it probably comes as no surprise that I often buy cake decorating books. Before I ever dreamed of "Disney movie nights" I had found a very, very cool "spaghetti and meatballs" cupcake recipe in one of my cake books, and I've been waiting for an excuse to make them. Well, then the Disney nights started, and what better reason could I possibly have for making spaghetti and meatball cupcakes than in honour of this classic scene from the movie:

I found the original idea in Karen Tack and Alan Richardson's Hello Cupcake! but used my usual recipes for vanilla cupcakes and vanilla buttercream. These cakes looked great, but with all the icing, the jam and the chocolate piled on top they were very sweet and sickly! We also found them quite messy to eat, and most of us ended up using a fork or spoon - expect a very gooey and very sweet cupcake!

Prep time: 30 mins      Cook time: 20 mins      Serves: makes 9 cupcakes

Ingredients:

100g margarine
100g caster sugar
100g self raising flour
1 medium egg
Few drops of vanilla essence
12 Ferraro Rocher chocolates
250g strawberry jam
150g unsalted butter
350g icing sugar
Drop of milk
A little white chocolate, for grating

1. Preheat the oven to gas mark 5 and line a bun tray with white cupcake cases.
2. Cream the margarine and caster sugar together in a large bowl. Sift in the flour and fold this into the mixture. Add the egg and vanilla essence to the mixture and beat well until all ingredients have combined.
3. Carefully spoon one tbsp of cake mixture into each cupcake case (this made 9 cupcakes) and bake in the preheated oven for 20 minutes, or until golden brown and firm to touch.
4. Remove the cakes from the oven and set to one side to cool.
5. Whilst the cakes are cooling, make the butter cream. Beat the butter in a large bowl to soften. Sift in a little of the icing sugar and beat into the butter. Continue adding the icing sugar a little at a time until it is all combined. Add a drop of milk to the mixture to soften it, if required, and beat in some vanilla essence.
6. Once the cupcakes have cooled, cover each one in a thin layer of butter cream. Place the rest of the butter cream in a piping bag and pipe "spaghetti" onto the cupcakes. This actually looks better if you do it roughly, allowing some pieces to hang over the edges and overlapping the icing, rather than if you try to keep it neat and tidy.
7. In another bowl, stir the jam until it gets runny. Unwrap the Ferraro Rocher's and drop each one into the jam. Using a tablespoon, scoop one "meatball" (Ferrero Rocher) and some jam out o the bowl and place this on top of the "spaghetti" spoon any left over jam onto the cupcakes. Note: I used one "meatball per cupcake, plus an extra "meatball" on the serving dish or resting in the middle of the cupcakes, for decoration
8. Grate a little white chocolate over all of the cupcakes, serve and enjoy!

Next time we're watching Sleeping Beauty, and I'll be testing out my piping skills to make something pretty ^_^

Happy Thoughts
x

Second Star to the Right and Straight on 'Til Morning

Disney Classic # 14 - Peter Pan

Peter Pan was my littlest sister's favourite when she was littler - so I've been toying with the idea of making a Neverland Cake for some time. However, I figured a cakey model of Disney's Neverland complete with mountains and all might be a bit much for a Disney movie night (it would be huge and would take me days to make, and there would be far too much cake to be consumed by the 6-8 of us that are usually present!) However, I knew I wanted Neverland to be the basis of this week's cake, so after throwing a few ideas around I decided to make a map of Neverland. I also decided that I was getting a bit fed up of vanilla sponge, so Neverland would be lemon flavoured.

Again no references for this one, I just sort of made it up as I went along.

Ingredients:

300g ready to roll fondant icing
Various food colourings (especially blue, brown and yellow)
3 ice cream cornets
25g white chocolate
chocolate sprinkles
500g self-raising flour
500g margarine
500g caster sugar
4 large eggs
4tbsp lemon curd
2 tsp lemon juice
200g soft cheese
50g unsalted butter
250g icing sugar
star shaped sprinkles

1. Preheat the oven to gas mark 4 and grease and line a large baking pan
2. Cream together the margarine and sugar in a large bowl.  Sift in roughly 1/4 of the flour and fold this into the mixture. Add one egg and beat until combined. Repeat this process, adding a little flour and then an egg, until all of the flour and all of the eggs have been added to the mixture. Mix in 4tbsp of lemon curd and 2tsp lemon juice.
3. Pour the mixture into the baking pan, being sure to spread it to the edges, and bake in the oven for 50 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean and dry.
4. Whilst the cake is baking, prepare the decorations for the top of it (I've posted a close up picture of all of the fondant bits below, for reference):
• For the map: colour 200g of the ready to roll icing with a little yellow and a little brown food colouring, to give the impression of old withered paper. Roll this out to be slightly smaller than the cake, and tear and curl the edges a little. Using brown and blue food colouring, paint on the details of the map (brown for land, blue for water.)
• For the pirate's ship: colour a little of the fondant icing brown, and mold this into a "ship" shape (I did an oblong curled up at both ends). Using a cocktail stick dipped in brown food colouring, poke windows into the sides of the ship. Carefully trim down three cocktail sticks, and press a little white fondant onto each. Insert these into the ship to look like sails. (be sure to take the cocktail sticks out before serving!)
• For the lost boys' tree house: colour a little fondant brown, and a little green, and mold these to look like a tree. Use a small amount of flesh coloured fondant to model two heads, and stick these to the tree with water.
• For the mermaids: model a rock and two mermaids from various colours of fondant - using water to stick the pieces together. (My mermaids had no arms as they were so small they kept breaking! Wendy says "Those mermaids just tried to drowned me!" Peter laughs, and says, "Don't worry Wendy, they're armless!!" Haha!)
• For skull rock: model the skull and two smaller rocks out of grey fondant. Paint the skull details on using black food colouring.
• For the Indian village: trim the ends off of the three ice cream cornets. Melt the chocolate and use this to cover the cornets. Before the chocolate sets, stick chocolate sprinkles to the cornets to look like entrances to the teepee's. Flatten a tiny piece of brown fondant and dip this in water and then into the chocolate sprinkles, allow this to dry (these are the logs for the camp-fire). Using a little orange and a little yellow fondant, mold a flame shape and stick this to the "logs".
• 
5. When the cake is cooked, remove this from the oven and leave to cool in the pan for at last ten minutes. Remove from the pan and place on the serving board to continue to cool.
6. Prepare the frosting. Melt the unsalted butter and set this to one side to cool. Place the soft cheese in a large bowl and sift in the icing sugar. Using an electric mixer and starting on a low speed, beat together the cheese and the sugar. Gradually increase the speed of the mixer. When the frosting has reached a smooth, thick consistency (after around 5 minutes) add the cooled melted butter and the remaining 2 tbsp lemon curd. Continue to beat for a further 2 minutes, then add enough blue food colouring to reach the desired colour. Store the frosting in the fridge until it is ready to use.
7. Once the cake has completely cooled, spread the blue frosting all over it. Place the map on top, and arranged the "3D elements" on top of the map, using a little frosting to stick these into place if needed. Place the star sprinkles around the edges of the cake to give the impression of the night sky.
8. Cut into slices and serve!

Next time we're watching Lady and the Tramp, and I'll be making some savory looking spaghetti and meatball cupcakes!

Happy Thoughts
x

Clean Cup! Clean Cup! Moove Do~own!!

Disney Classic # 13 - Alice in Wonderland

My inspiration for the cakes (and drinks) came from the food and drink in the movie. Originally I was going to focus on the Mad Hatter's tea party; I was going to make a teapot shaped tea-flavoured cake, then thought perhaps it would be fun to bake the cakes actually in tea cups/mugs. I toyed with the idea of somehow making edible tea-cups, but I couldn't think of how to do so without spending hours moulding them out of sugar paste (which probably wouldn't taste too great with the tea flavoured cake) so I decided against the tea-party. Another idea that I toyed with for a while was a two flavoured mushroom cake - one side to make you grow taller, and the other side to make you grow shorter. (I will most definitely be creating this one in the future. Maybe one day I will hold an Alice style tea party!?) The idea I finally settled on were the "eat me" biscuits and cakes which make Alice grow bigger, and of course I couldn't serve cakes which make you bigger without serving the drinks to make you small again, so I decided to make some (adult) "drink me" potions too ^_^

The tea flavoured cake is a recipe I sort of invented earlier this year. When sat discussing the joys of tea and cake with my friends, Big Mike raised the question of whether or not I'd ever come across a recipe for tea flavoured cake. I hadn't, but for his birthday I decided that I would do the research and try it, however the only recipes I could find for "tea flavoured cake" used green tea. So I decided to adapt a basic sponge recipe by adding tea to it. For the vodka - I came across this video tutorial when searching for "colourful drinks" so I thought I'd give it a go.

Drink Me Potions (Skittles Vodka)

Prep time: 1-2 days             Cook time: none         Serves: this depends on how much you drink! There was more than enough for 10 of us to have a couple of drinks each

Ingredients:

750ml Vodka
174g (share bag size) skittles

1. Separate the skittles by colour into 5 different containers. Add 150ml vodka to each container and place in the fridge. Leave to dissolve at least overnight, but preferably for 2 days.
2. Once the skittles have fully dissolved, use a coffee filters to skim off the excess fat/sugar place into bottles and keep chilled.
3. Serve either in shots or with lemonade.

Eat Me Cupcakes

Prep time: 40 mins Cook time: 20 mins Serves: makes 20 cupcakes


Ingredients:

60ml boiling water
3 tea bags
200g margarine
200g caster sugar
200g self raising flour
2 medium eggs
4tbsp lemon curd
500g ready to roll fondant icing
various food colourings/dyes
piping icing
various dragees/sprinkles for decoration

1. Place the tea bags into a container and pour the boiling water over them. Set this to one side for at least 30 minutes.
2. Preheat the oven to gas mark 5 and place cupcake cases into a bun tray.
3. Beat the margarine and sugar together in a large bowl until creamy. Sift roughly half the flour into the bowl and fold into the margarine and sugar mixture. Add one egg to the bowl and beat well. Sift the rest of the flour into the bowl and fold into the mixture. Beat in the final egg until all ingredients are combined.
4. The tea should now be cool, and quite thick (almost syrupy). Add the tea to the cake batter a spoonful at a time, mixing well.
5. Carefully spoon 1tbsp of cake batter into each cupcake case and bake for 20 mins, until light brown and firm to touch. Remove the cupcakes from the oven and place on a wire wrack to cool.
6. Whilst the cupcakes are cooling, colour the fondant icing. I used 5 different colours (100g icing each) and this was more than enough to cover 4 cupcakes in each colour, plus some fondant left over.
7. Once the cupcakes are cool, spread each one with a thin layer of lemon curd. Roll out the coloured fondant on a powdered surface until around 7-10mm thick. Use a round cookie cutter to cut 4 circles from the fondant and place these on top of the cupcakes. Decorate each cupcake with writing icing, dragees and sprinkles and enjoy with a cup of tea (or some skittles vodka)

Next time we're flying to neverland, and I'll be making a map for when we're there!

Happy Thoughts
x

A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Bakes...

Disney Classic # 12 - Cinderella

Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later... I had my first disaster cake!! It all just went so wrong!

My mum asked if I was drunk when I made this... It does look a little tipsy, doesn't it?

When I thought about doing a cake for Cinderella I knew it had to be the castle. The castle is probably one of Disney's most iconic images... and every princess wants her own castle cake... right? I knew it would be difficult, especially as firstly I didn't want to do just any old castle cake, it had to be fairly recognisable as Cinderella's Castle. 

That is an awful lot of towers and turrets...

Secondly - I'd never made a castle cake before, so I wasn't sure what would work or what wouldn't!! I referred to a couple of cake decorating books for ideas of how to create this "masterpiece". Debbie Brown's 50 Easy Party Cakes (Castle Guards, pg 70 and Dream Castle, pg 85) and The Australian Women's Weekly Kids' Birthday Cakes (Palace of Dreams, pg 80). What I noticed was that generally people didn't bake castle cakes, but rather they assembled them. So, I felt a bit like I was cheating when I went out and bought some swiss rolls... The part of the cake that was baked by me used my standard vanilla sponge recipe.

What went wrong? Well, I think there are two reasons for the wonkiness of my towers. The first (and what I think is the main cause) was that I made a bit of a schoolboy error when measuring the cakes. I measured, cut and assembled the cake before I iced it, to make sure the shapes and sizes were right. And before any of the icing went on, things were looking promising:

Look at those towers all standing nice and mostly straight

However, when I made the measurements I didn't account for the additional length added by the icing. Now this may only be a few millimetres per swiss roll, but when you add them together the cakes that were resting on top of the base didn't actually fit on the base. Humph. So they leaned into the towers next to them, causing those towers to also lean. To be honest, I'm lucky it didn't all collapse! Another thing that could have contributed was the tops of the towers being too heavy as I covered them in fondant icing - in hindsight it would have been better to use a lighter icing, like butter cream or royal icing, or maybe to dip them in chocolate.

You can probably gather that I wasn't best pleased with how this cake turned out, but you live and learn! Next time I make a castle cake I won't be making the same mistakes again. And regardless of how it looked, it was a pretty tasty cake, and there was so much of it that all of my friends got to take a massive chunk home with them too!

For those of you who would like to have a go at making your own version of the disaster castle, I've put the ingredients and method below. ^_^

Prep time: 1-2 hours Cook time: 20 mins Serves: 20+

Ingredients:

200g margarine
200g caster sugar
200g self-raising flour
2 medium eggs
1 tsp vanilla essence
2-3tbsp strawberry, raspberry or mixed fruit jam
2 jumbo swiss rolls
3 standard swiss rolls
2 mini swiss rolls
10 ice cream cornets
1.5kg white ready to roll fondant icing (plus a further 180g for making the Cinderella model - see yesterday's post!)
Blue food colouring
Purple food colouring
Edible glitter (I used White Hologram)
75g unsalted butter
125g icing sugar

1. This cake takes quite a bit of time to put together, so I found it easier to colour my icing and make the Cinderella model the night before baking/assembling the cake. Full details of how to make Cinders are found here. I coloured 150g of white icing lilac, and 250g of white icing blue, for the tops of the towers.
2. Preheat the oven to gas mark 5 and grease and line a square baking pan.
3. Cream the margarine and caster sugar together in a bowl. Beat the eggs in a separate bowl. Sift in roughly half of the flour and fold into the margarine mixture. Add roughly half of the egg to the bowl and beat well. Keep alternating flour and egg until the mixture is completely combined. Pour the mixture into the prepared cake pan and bake for approx 25 mins, or until golden brown and firm to touch. Remove the cake from the oven and set to one side to cool.
4. Whilst the cake is cooling, make butter cream by combining the unsalted butter and icing sugar in a large bowl until smooth.
5. Once the cake is cool, cut it into quarters. Use the strawberry jam to sandwich the four squares of cake on top of each other to make the base of the castle.
6. Stand the swiss rolls next to/on the base and cut to the appropriate sizes. (See picture above for reference.) You can always stick pieces of swiss roll together with a bit of jam if you need to make a bigger tower. I used 2/3's of a jumbo swiss rolls for two of the side towers, and two regular swiss roll for the smaller side towers that stand in front of those. I used 1/3 of a jumbo swiss roll for the large tower that rests on top of the base at the back, and cut the third regular swiss roll in half to create the two smaller towers either side of that. for the three small towers at the front of the base, I cut mini swiss rolls in half.
7. Using a serrated knife, carefully cut the ice cream cornets down to the required size(s). Check that all of the towers fit together. Cover each of the cornets in butter cream. Roll the blue and lilac fondant icing into small balls and flatten these between your thumb and forefinger. Stick these "bricks" into the butter cream until the tower tops are completely covered.
8. On a powdered surface, roll out some of the white ready to roll fondant icing. Cover the base and each of the swiss rolls in fondant icing, using a little butter cream on each to help the fondant to stick.
9. Reassemble the various towers, sticking to the base with a little butter cream. Stick the cornet tower tops onto the swiss roll towers with a little butter cream. Paint a front gate onto the cake using a little food colouring and place the Cinderella model in front of the castle. Give the whole thing a generous sprinkling of edible glitter.
10. Cut into slices and enjoy!

Hopefully next time we'll have a bit more luck with Alice in Wonderland, when I'll be making "Eat Me" cupcakes and "Drink Me" potions!


Happy Thoughts
x

Cinderelly, Cinderelly, CINDERELLLLA!

Disney Classic # 12 - Cinderella

So normally I wouldn't make two posts for one cake - but (!!!) this week's cake is particularly complex to describe. Originally I wasn't going to post the details about how I made the mini Cinderella who stands with the castle, but then I figured there may be someone somewhere who might like to know. I also don't normally post step by step photos, but I figured this time it may help. So, without further delay, here she is!

I've been making little figures out of fondant icing for a while now to sit or stand on or next to a novelty cake. I've never made an animated character before though! (This post is just full of firsts!) Usually they are characatures of the friend(s) that the cake is for, and a couple of times I've done characters from books. Doing these figures I developed a bit of a style - making them simplified and dumpy looking with no facial features - but I kind of like it so I'm sticking with it. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I know this figure does not specifically look like Disney's Cinderella, but that's OK, because she is my version of her.

The real deal

Prep time: 30 mins

Ingredients:

180g ready to roll white icing
Food colouring (I use paste colourings, as you use less than liquid, the colour is more vibrant, and the icing doesn't get as sticky and so is easier to work with.)
Sugarflair Paste Colouring in Baby Blue
Sugarflair Paste Colouring in Yellow/Cream
Sugarflair Paste Colouring in Pink
1 tbsp icing sugar
few drops warm water

1. Make sure your hands are very clean and dry, otherwise the icing can get dirty/sticky/a bit gross.
2. Start off by making a very rough model out of white icing. Don't worry about making it stand at this stage, this is purely to give you an indication as to how much icing you will need in each colour. If in doubt - over-estimate! As an indicator, I used the following:
• 115g icing coloured baby blue for the dress
• 25g icing coloured a lighter shade of blue for the aaccents and the headband
• 10g icing coloured yellow for the hair
• 30g icing coloured flesh for the head and arms. (Note: you can buy "flesh" coloured food colouring, but I don't have that one so I used a little pink and a little yellow - it seems to work fine!)
3. Use a toothpick to place a small amount of colouring paste onto the icing you are colouring, and knead this until the colour is even. The best thing to do is start with a tiny bit of colouring and then add to it until you have the desired colour, it's always easy to make the icing darker, but not as easy to make it lighter.
4. Mould the various shapes/components which will make your figure. If you have tools and know how to use them then great, but I just mould these with my hands - it's a bit like playing with playdough. It is important at this stage to make sure that the base of the skirt is flat and even so that the figure will stand unsupported.
5. Put a tbsp of icing sugar into a small bowl and add a couple of drops of water to it to make a sticky icing that you will use to "glue" the pieces together. Take care when putting the "glue" onto the parts of you figure though, as this will dry white.
6. Assemble the pieces of your figure! Start by stading the skirt/base upright and sticking the two circles of the over-skirt to it with the icing glue.
7. Stick the torso to the skirt. As his piece is quite heavy, it is best to hold it in place for a few seconds to allow the icing to go tacky and hold it in place.
8. Pinch one end of each arm flat, and spread a little icing glue to the flat end. Stick these to the torso, overlapping slightly to create shoulders.
9. Assemble the pieces of the head seperatley. Stick the hair onto the head, flattening down as much as possible at the back, and curling up at the front to creat a fringe. Use the icing glue to stick the bun to the back of the hair, and the headnband just behind the fringe. Use a cocktail stick to make two holes for eyes.
10. Stick the head to the torso with the icing glue, and then stick the sleeves over the shoulders. Hey presto, you're all finished! Try not to handle the figure too much whilst the icing glue is drying, and keep it in an airtight container until it's ready to use!

I made my Cinderella figure the night before I made the actual cake as it saves time and the icing keeps well. So I've decided to post this "not-really-a-cake" post the night before the actual cake post goes on too, but I thought you might like to see a preview of the finished product (even though it didn't work out as planned - but more on that tomorrow!)

Happy Thoughts

x

Don't Try to Reason with a Headless Man

Disney Classic # 11 - The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad

Ichabod and Mr Toad (particularly the Ichabod part) have been favourites of mine since childhood. This feature consists of two really rather good shorts - Disney's adaptation The Wind in the Willows, and their adaptation of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.
For the cake I decided to try something a little more technical. One of the reasons I started this "challenge" was because I enjoy making novelty cakes and love trawling the pictures in cake decorating books of cakes in fantastical shapes. It amazes me what some bakers are able to do with a bit of cake and a good idea! Now that we're moving out of the uncharted territory (films I hadn't seen/don't really remember) and into the much loved movies of my childhood, I imagine that there will be a fair few more novelty cakes popping up.

Anyway, returning to Ichabod and Mr. Toad... As this was a double-feature I decided to place focus on my favourite of the two features for my inspiration for this week's cake. Whilst a lot of food features in the movie (Ichabod is constantly eating!) I decided instead to base my cake on a prominent image of the film: the Headless Horseman's flaming jack-o-lantern head, which he throws at his victims in exchange for their own head! I had thought about making this cake pumpkin flavoured, but decided against this, firstly because pumpkins aren't in season right now, secondly because I'm not sure if the texture/consistency of pumpkin cake lends itself to be easily carved, and finally because I'm not sure if the flavour would go too well with the icing. I do think it's best when trying something a bit out of the norm to focus either on experimenting with flavour OR experimenting with appearance, you don't want to do too much!!

Our Horseman was not best pleased when he found out Ichabod had eaten all of the cake

As with the majority of novelty cakes I make, the sponge inside is a simple but delicious vanilla sponge - the recipe my mum passed down to me. I'm not sure where it originated, it's just permanently ingrained into my brain from years of use. The design of the cake is based on a cake which appears in Debbie Brown's 50 Easy Party Cakes. (Mouse House, pg 40)

Prep time: 30-40 minutes (significantly longer if you colour your own icing!) Cook time: 2 hours 30mins Serves: 12

Ingredients:

500g margarine
500g caster sugar
500g self raising flour
4 large eggs
1tbsp vanilla essence
700g ready to roll/fondant icing
Orange food colouring (I use Sugarflair Gel Paste Colouring as it gives a more vibrant colour)
Black food colouring
Red food colouring
Yellow food colouring
4 tbsp granulated sugar
75g butter
125g icing sugar
Strawberry jam

1. Preheat the oven to gas mark 4 and line a round oven-proof/Pyrex bowl with foil.
2. In a very large bowl, beat together the margarine and caster sugar until creamy.
3. Sift in around a quarter of the flour and fold into the margarine mixture. add one egg to the mixture and beat until combined. Repeat this process until all on the eggs and flour are incorporated into the mixture. Add the vanilla essence and mix well.
4. Separate the mixture into 3 bowls. Using the food colourings, turn one bowl of cake mixture red, one orange and one yellow.
5. Using half of the total cake mixture, layer the different colours into the lined Pyrex bowl. Run a bamboo skewer through the bowl to create swirls.
6. Bake the cake until firm to touch and a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean. For me this took 1 hour 15 mins, but it depends on the size of the dish you are using (mine is small but deep). My advice is to check the cake after 45 mins, and then every 10-15 mins from then onwards.
7. Whilst the cakes are baking, prepare the icing and the sugars for decorating. Colour the ready to roll icing orange by using a toothpick to place a small amount of orange food dye onto the icing and kneading it through until the colour is even. Start off using a small amount of dye and then add more as necessary.
8. To make the "ash": place 2 tbsp granulated sugar into a food bag, 1 tbsp into a second, and 1tbsp into the third. Add a small drop of black food colouring to the bag with the most sugar and tie the bag off. Rub gently between your hands until all of the sugar is evenly coated and gray in colour. Repeat this process with the other two bags, making one red and one orange. Put these to one side until ready to use.
9. Once the cake is cooked, remove it from the oven and leave to cool for 10 minutes. Once cool enough to handle, gently remove the cake from the Pyrex bowl and allow to cool on a wire wrack.
10. Wash, dry and re-line the Pyrex bowl and repeat steps 5-7 for the second layer.
11. Once both cakes have completely cooled, make the buttercream. Beat the butter until soft and then sift in the icing sugar.
12. Cut the top of both cakes level, and spread a thin layer of jam on one of the layers. Place the other layer, flat side down, on top of the first layer, so that they create a ball shape.
13. Using a serrated knife, cut 1cm ridges/grooves around the cake to create a pumpkin shape. cover the cake in a thin layer of butter cream (this is to keep the ready to roll icing in place.)
14. Using icing sugar to prevent the icing from sticking, roll out the orange icing and cover the cake. Gently press the icing into the grooves with the side of your hand, and trim any excess icing from the bottom of the cake.
15. Mix a little of the black food dye with a drop of vanilla essence and carefully paint the face onto your jack-o-lantern.
16. Mix the grey, red and orange sugars together to look like ash and burning embers, sprinkle this around the base of the cake. (this is optional, but I like the way it looks, and it covers any rough patches at the bottom of the cake...)
17. Slice and serve!

Next time we'll be watching Cinderella, and I'll be taking on the iconic castle in cake form!

Happy Thoughts
x