Daddys Birthday Cake

My daddy had his birthday last week ( he was 32 !! ), so I decided to make him a birthday cake.

Ingredients
6 oz margarine
6 oz caster sugar
6 oz Allinson self raising flour
3 eggs
Bernies Damson Jelly Jam for filling ( or any tasty jam will do )

For The Topping

450g Silver Spoon Royal icing
2 tsp Silver Spoon Blue Food Colouring
1 packet Silver Spoon Chocolate Letters & Numbers
Silver Spoon Chocolate Flavour Strands
Silver Spoon White Chocolate Stars

Method

Preheat your oven to 190c and grease 2 round cake tins

Mix together your caster sugar and margarine until white and fluffy ( I use an electric whisk )

Slowly mix in your eggs and sifted flour, stirring all the time

When it looks a nice light mix, divide it into your two cake tins and pop it in the oven for approx 15-20 mins

Get a grown up to check your cakes are ready by touching the top with their finger...if it springs back, it is done !

Take out of the oven and turn out onto a wire rack to cool down.

Once the cakes are fully cooled, you can begin the fun part....DECORATING !!

To sandwich my cake together, I used a delicious jam called Bernies Damson Jelly Jam.  It is a really good jam to use because it is completely smooth and very easy to spread. If you don't have any jelly jam, then any ordinary jam will be fine aswell. Just spread on a nice thick layer of jam to stick the top and bottom of the cake together.

Next I did the icing.

Measure 75ml of cold water into a big bowl and tip 450g of Royal Icing in

Mix for about 2-3 minutes and then add in your food colouring to give the icing its colour

Carry on mixing for another 2 minutes..it does make your arms ache haha

It should start to go quite hard ( but still soft enough to spread over your cake )

If it is too watery you can add a little bit of icing sugar

Once it was ready, I poured it all over the top of my cake and used a palette knife to spread it across

I let the icing sugar dry a little bit and then I started to put on my decorations

First I put on the letters and then me and my sister Lily finished off the cake by sprinkling over lots of chocolate strands and chocolate stars.

A little tip is to put down some greaseproof paper under the rack before you pour over the icing sugar, otherwise it will go all over your worktop ( and means lots more cleaning up afterwards..yuck )

My daddy had a lovely birthday with lots and lots of presents but his favourite gift was my cake !!