Flicking through some Facebook pictures this weekend, I came across some snaps of my goddaughter Ruby’s 6th birthday party! I didn’t flinch when I saw the picture of the sparkly pink cake adorned with little cupcakes, something to give Barbie’s princess castle a run for its money in the pink, glitter stakes. After all, I spend a lot of time staring at pictures of cooking and baking, and an equal amount of time drooling on my keyboard (it is work, honestly. I like to consider it some sort of market research!) What caught my eye though was my friend Gemma’s public apology to her daughter for “Mummy getting a bit carried away with baking the cake!” Hang on a sec….she made that herself??!
I’ve always known she was incredibly creative, and in the last few years since having children, she has become more and more of a domestic goddess (her mother refers to it as “1950’s housewife” but I feel that title is no way glamorous enough for a twenty something yummy mummy!) but I was still stunned with what a fantastic job she had done with this one! Upon contacting her to express my awe and appreciation (and disappointment that I live too far away to go and polish some of it off!), she proudly informed me that she had even sent a tweet to “the ACTUAL Nigella Lawson” with a picture of the cake and been informed by the ultimate domestic goddess herself that her cake was indeed “FABULOUS!”
She assured me the recipe was very simple and easy to make, so I felt it would be rude not to share it for anyone out there who has a little princess who likes cake, and let’s face it, all princesses like cake (or so we’ve heard!)
Recipe:
You will need………
For the Cake:
100g of butter
1 cupof sugar
1 cup of milk
1 beaten egg
2 cups of self-raising flour
teaspoon of vanilla essence
1 cup of white chocolate.
For the Icing:
110g of unsalted butter
500g of icing sugar
60ml of milk at room temperature
1 tsp vanilla extract
Pink food colouring
Pre heat the oven to 170 degrees
1. Place butter, sugar and milk in a pan and melt together over a low heat.
2. Take off the heat – stir in the chocolate and vanilla essence until smooth.
3. Sieve the flour in slowly and mix in until mixture is smooth and thick.
4. Mix in the egg.
5. Place mixture into a lined loaf tin and bake for 45mins-an hour (until golden crust forms and cake bounces back when touched in the centre)
For the cupcakes: create the same mixture and spoon into mini cupcake cases – bake for 15-20 minutes (until golden crust forms and cake bounces back when touched in the centre)
To make the butter icing….
1. Cream together the butter and icing sugar in a bowl.
2. Add the milk and vanilla extract and beat the whole mixture together, until light and fluffy.
3. Add a few drops of food colouring until you reach the colour you require
To create the cake – trim edges of the loaf cake to create a straight rectangle shape.
Place on a cake board – cover with pink butter icing.
Arrange the small cupcakes on the top and next to the large cake on to the board. Use lolly sticks inserted into the base of the cupcakes (through the paper case) to create the raised and leaning cakes with the effect of a pile of cascading cakes falling off the cake.
Place pink strawberry ‘Silverspoon’ buttons on the top and around the top edge of the cake (leave space for ribbon around the bottom of the edge of the cake.)
Using a piping bag, pipe the small cupcakes and edges of the cake. Add piped details in between the cupcakes to ‘blend’ them into the surface of the cake.
Add pink sugar pearls, pink buttons and pink sugar glitter to the cupcakes. Add pearls to the edges of the cake on the piped details.
Store in the fridge – before presenting add a pink fabric bow 
