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In The Garden Cake
by Julie Phillips
(Guildford, Surrey, UK)
My 4 year old daughter and I managed to quickly make and decorate this beautiful cake as a last minute gift for my Auntie. I baked an 8 inch sponge cake, then split it and sandwiched it with jam. I then rolled out a packet of white ready ice (fondant) and after coating the cake with seedless raspberry jam (didn't have apricot!), proceeded to cover the cake.
My daughter then raided her playdough cutters and found flowers, butterfly and leaf shapes and using a packet of 4 pre-coloured Supercook ready icing (green/yellow/red/black) spent just under an hour making the decorations. We cut about 30 little yellow flowers & 30 little red flowers and then put a tiny ball of white (from the remainder what we'd covered the cake with) to make the centre of the flower. We then used some cooled boiled water to paint a border at the base of the cake and then stuck the flowers on alternating the red & yellow.
We then cut the green leaves and marked the 'veins' on with a knife. Having then cut out the red butterflies and adding their bodies with the black and cutting the yellow flowers and layering them, I finally made the ladybird, which even with my very limited modelling skills was easy and effective. Just a red body, black head and a few spots and eyes!
Using a very small amount of the boiled water we then assembled the top of the cake, added some candles and sparklers, and it really was that simple. My 4 year old was over the moon with the results of her very hard work and the pleasure she took in presenting the cake made it a lunchtime well spent!
