The girl in the blue dress: Cake making and party

Iv always been the creative type and been art'y all my life, I was the typical younger girl who would make cakes with my mum out of one of them boxes that was already mostly made, aha. My mum did catering when she was in collage so when I was able I started to make food from scratch, with a lot of research I made cakes for every celebration, I had built up what I would say as a medium sized collection of cake decorating equipment, then I just stopped making them, I got to that lazy age and I had made one for a very long time. A few weeks a go my little cousin asked me to make her birthday cake for her party, and I wasn't going to say no. So we planned what she wanted and three days before her party I got cracking the first day I made the cake and decorated it the second, I am in no means an expert but here is how I did it:

Ingredents(cake):

400g of self-raising flour(500g if not using coco powder)

500g of butter

500g of castor sugar

10 eggs

2 table spoons of baking powder

100g coco powder(optional)

First, I pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees. I then creamed the butter and the sugar using my James Martin electric mixer but you could do it by hand, until its think and creamy.

In a separate bowl, I broke all the eggs and whisked them using a fork until they were all mixed in. Then gradually add them too the butter and sugar mix, and mixing with my electric whisk.

After that, I added half the flour and folded in in using a wooden spoon, so that air bubbles don't escape, I don't recommend using a electric mix as I know from experience flour goes everywhere. Then I added the baking power and the coco powder, you don't need to add coco powder which make it chocolate cake just add 100g more of flour (500g).

My next step is to line my tins and add the mixture, I have one eight and one six and a half inch cake tins. I split the mixture into three, two for the big tin and one for the little, and filled the big tin and the little and put it in the oven for around 30-40 minutes and checking them every 5 minutes until they were done, the bigger one will take slightly longer. TIP,insert a knife into the center of the cake, slowly pull it out and if the knife has mixture on it then it isn't done.

This is what they looked like when they were done, I then wrapped them in tin foil and left them for the night.

Ingredients(decoration):

1kg of fondant icing(white)

red gel food coloring

chocolate style butter cream(one tub)

icing sugar

Toffee popcorn

So the day after I first cut the cakes so that they were level, in and I did this by putting them back into the the tin cutting the top that went over the side of the tin,(you might want to ask a parent or helper to do this if your younger).I also cut round the sides to get rid of the hard its and make it more smooth.

Then, I cut a box into the middle section as the step, then cut that piece in half,then half again and put it in the gap and one on top.(you might want to look at the picture, its hard to explain,aha)

I then covered the whole of the cake except the top in chocolate butter cream, you can always make the butter cream but buying it is much easier I used Betty Crocker. I also put more in between the two slices as the middle filling.

After that, I sprinkled a bit of icing sugar on my table and used a hand sized chunk of royal icing ,which you could also make but its much easier to buy, and rolled it out into a circle, Then placed it on top.

Then I rolled out a quarter of the royal icing in a long rectangle and placed it round the side over flapping the top slightly.

Then using my red gel food coloring I colored some icing. You could buy rd icing already done, but I don't suggest you use the normal food coloring especially with red as it takes a long time, uses a lot and doesn't come off your hands.

I then rolled out that icing and cut it into a long strip to represent the red carpet.

Now its time to actually decorate it. I went round all the ends of the cake with alternate red then white small balls to finish it off and get rid of all the bad lines. I then cut out a little star and using a edible pen I wrote eve and went round it with tiny dots. I made a quick clapper board and a number 9, I used edible glue to stick the on. I had a few sticks with little hearts an stars on the side which I decided to stick out the top and use as a post for a little barrier which I then added red ribbon too. And lastly to finish it off I draped toffee popcorn down the side and across the top.