Slice of cake anyone?

Now, most people buy cakes for every special occassion - birthdays, anniversaries, engagements, weddings, newborn babies etc. And most cakes costs an arm and a leg. Some don't even taste that yummy. So, I decided the best way to satisfy the pocket and the tummy is to make your own favourite cake and deck it out real nice with pretty icing and decorations. Today, I'm going to teach you how to bake and ice your own cake!

I made this cake with two different flavours. The top tier is a carrot cake and the bottom is chocolate. But to make things easier, let's stick to just one flavour.

Chocolate Mud Cake

500g butter

500g dark chocolate

4 tablespoons instant espresso coffee powder

300g plain flour

300g self raising flour
1 cup cocoa powder

2-4 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

1100g caster sugar

4 tablespoons oil

1 cup buttermilk

eggs

1. Preheat the oven to 160 degree Celsius. Lightly grease a deep 12cm and a 25cm square cake tin and line the base and side with baking paper.

2. Put butter, chocolate and coffee in a pan with 370ml hot water. Stir over low heat until smooth. Remove from heat.

3. Sift the flours, cocoa powder and bicarbonate of soda in a large mixing bowl. Stir in sugar and make a well in the centre. Add the combined eggs, oil and buttermilk. Using a large metal spoon, slowly stir to include the dry ingredients. Slowly stir in the melted chocolate mixture.

4. Pour the mixture into the 12 cm tin and bake for 1 hour (Bake 25cm tin for 1 hour 40 minutes). Test the centre with a skewer. If the skewer appears just lightly wet, remove the cake from the oven. Do not remove cake if centre looks raw. Just continue to bake for another 5-10 minutes. Leave the cake in the tin until completely cold. Then turn out and wrap in plastic wrap.

*You need to bake TWO cakes for this two tier boxes of gifts style.

Decorating the cake

80 g of apricot jam

9 x 500 g packets of ready made soft icing

pure icing sugar to dust

assorted food colourings

1 egg white

1. Cut a cardboard square the same size as the smaller cake. Trim the tops off the cakes so they are similar heights. Invert the cake onto the cardboard and place the largest on a cake board. Warm the jam, strain and brush over the cakes.

2. Knead 3 1/2 packets of the icing on a work surface dusted with icing sugar. Tint the icing pake pink. Roll out the icing to about 5mm thick and large enough to cover the largest cake. Use a little icing to fill in any holes in the cake to ensure an even surface. Roll the icing over the rolling pin and re-roll over the top of the cake. Gently press over the cake using the palms of your hands dusted with icing sugar. Smooth and trim any excess. Add more pink colouring to the leftover icing to tint it darker pink and warp in plastic.

3. Insert 4 skewers into the cake to support the layers. Knead 2 1/2 packets of the icing and tint pale yellow. Roll out to cover the smaller cake. Tint leftover icing darker yellow.

4. Place the cakes on top of each other. Roll the darker icing out to about 3mm thick. Cut small hearts from the pink icing and stick onto the pink cake with a little egg white. Cut strips from the yellow icing and stick onto the yellow cake. Using a cutter or knife, cut daisy shapes from the dark yellow icing and stick onto the yellow cake. Cut small rounds from the pale yellow icing for the centres. Re-roll the remaining yellow icing into strips of 3 cm wide. Stick to the cake to form a flat ribbon. Cut another two strips. Trim the ends and fold in half and support with cotton wool. Wrap the small strip of icing over the centre of the join for the centre of the bow. Place in the centre of the ribbon. Remove the cotton wool when set.

And there you have it, your own special two tier cake! :)

Some of my other cakes: