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
- Preheat the oven to gas mark 4 and grease and line a large baking pan
- 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.
- 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.
- 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".
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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
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