In the Night Garden Cake

In the Night Garden is an extremely popular TV program the UK for very young kids. My daughter loves one of the main characters, Upsy Daisy, so I decided to make her an Upsy Daisy cake for her second birthday.

I downloaded an image of Upsy Daisy from the BBC website and then enlarged it on the photocopier so that it was nice and big. Then I cut out the picture and cut them into parts:

1)the head

2)the dress

3)the legs

4)the arms

I threw away the hair part of the picture.

I checked to see what I could bake it in and found that I had 2 large flat Pyrex dishes that the pieces of paper could be laid on nicely.

I used 2 packets of cake mix and cooked them in the Pyrex dishes. I made sure that both dishes were filled to the same level and this ensured that my cake was all the same height.

Once the cake was cool, I placed the templates over them and used a sharp knife to cut out the pieces.

I covered my large Lazy Susan with kitchen foil and placed the cake on top to make the Upsy Daisy.

I used ready to roll fondant icing. (Rolled it out using cornflour and icing sugar.)

Firstly I made her red dress and then laid white on top. I used coloured icing for the red and black. I used food colouring to mix the pinks and purples with white icing. For her skin I added some cocoa powder to pink icing and it worked well.

I rolled out icing into sausage shapes to make her hair.

For a finishing touch I put little daisies round the cake.

My little girl loved her cake. I am so pleased with the way it turned out as I’ve never used this icing before and am quite a cake making novice.


16 thoughts on “In the Night Garden Cake”

  1. That looks great! You’ve inspired me, I’m now going to make an Igglepiggle cake for my daughter for her first birthday next month – she just loves him. I’ve already downloaded the image. Thanks a lot!

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  2. Thanks for your nice comments about my cake. Made me smile. Forgot to mention that if I ever made the same cake again, I would do the legs separately as it was too complicated with them the way they were.

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  3. Fantastic cake, well done, I have been looking for inspiration as want to make a cake for my daughters 2nd birthday as she loves the night garden, you have given me ideas now on how to make it, thanks so much, you are very clever ;-)

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  4. I have been searching for some form of instruction on how to make an upsey daisy cake. You’ve given me the basics to get started – thanks so much for that!!

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  5. What a lovely cake, well done! It’s my daughters first birthday in a couple of weeks and I want to make her a makka pakka cake as she loves him but didn’t even know where to start. Thanks for the instructions, that has given me the confidence to go ahead and make my cake!

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  6. Hi My daughter is turning 2 in March and she loves the character
    So I will try to make a cake for her
    Thanks for creating this

    Shira

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  7. this is awesome…. just wondering if you bought the fondant icing or you had to make it from scratch? I am going to attempt your recipe and see how I go…. surely you can buy the fondant icing – I hope so anyway….

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  8. I bought the ready to roll icing in Tesco: one large pack of white icing and one pack of different colours. I used some food colouring as well. The peach colour was made with red and yellow.

    The icing is nice to work with. Roll it out with cornflour or cornflour and icing sugar. It took me many hours so be prepared!

    I used 2 Betty Crocker devil’s food cake mix, also from Tesco. Flop proof and very good!

    It’s my son’s first birthday next month and I’m going to make him a very simple gingerbread man cake using butter icing. Hopefully it will be good enough to post.

    Good luck and I hope to see your cake on this website soon!

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  9. wow this cake is excellent i am trying to make this cake but I don’t have any Pyrex dishes so what do I do because her birthday is next month
    and if my mum’s cake goes wrong she is relying
    on myself.

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  10. I promised my daughter I would do an Upsy Daisy cake for her 2nd daughter without knowing how I would go about it. Your excellent instructions and tips about where to get the coloured fondant was a superb help. And finishing the board with daisies from the garden just made it perfect. I had loads of compliments on it. My tip would be if you are going to the effort of decorating the cake yourself then try making your own sponge instead of cake mix. I use my mum’s failsafe, easy recipe for chocolate sponge:
    5oz S/R flour, 3oz drinking choc, 6oz soft mar, 6oz caster sugar, 3 large eggs. Put it all in your food mixer and mix, then add 2 tablespoons boiling water and mix briefly again. Put it into your cake tin and cook for 30 mins at 180-200degrees. Makes fab, soft sponge.

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  11. Thanks for the inspiration on making these cakes I have twins turning 2 and want to make 2 night garden cakes, so after reading this i am going to do it.

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  12. This cake is amazing! I am going to try and make it gir my daughter Dausy next week, she lives itng.
    Did you put icing around the outside if the cake too?
    Thanks!

    Reply

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