Jammie Dodgers are a quintessentially British, childhood favourite biscuit (cookie) – two layers of shortbread sandwiched with jam and buttercream.
Here are the originals, and the Doctor Who version, courtesy of Doctor Who: The Official Cookbook.
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Batman
Inspired by the 1960’s Batman logo…
Black fondant over cake cut to bat shape, with the birthday boy’s name piped on in very yellow royal icing. One of my favourites!
Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte
My aunt and uncle live in the Black Forest so when I was asked to make a traditional German cake, this was the obvious choice!
It is made up of layers of chocolate cake, whipped cream and dark morello cherries. (Trader Joe’s dark morello cherries worked really well!) The cake is typically soaked in kirsch but this had to be alcohol-free as there were children present, so I used the juice from the cherries instead.
It was never going to be as awesome as Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte eaten in its native setting, but this was an awfully good facsimile!
Five Nights At Freddy’s
Here is Freddy Fazbear, from Five Nights at Freddy’s, complete with top hat and bow tie. He was made as a runout, using coloured royal icing, and transferred onto the cake when dry.
It was eaten as quickly as the pizza in his restaurant 🙂
Chewbacca
I made Chewbacca for a friend’s 12th birthday. The cake is carved from layers of chocolate sponge and vanilla buttercream, and his fur made from strands of chocolate buttercream piped though a star nozzle. I coloured some fondant for his gums, nose and eyes, with white for teeth.
The kids loved it, as did I!
The Sun Dial Lodge
We moved into The Sun Dial Lodge just before Gareth’s birthday, so what better cake than a replica of the eponymous sundial?
The cake itself was layers of victoria sponge sandwiched in the traditional way, with buttercream and raspberry jam. I replicated the colouring of the sundial face by kneading together some stone and grey fondant to create a mottled effect. For the gnomon, I made two mirror-image royal icing runouts, roughly to scale, and glued them together (with more royal icing) for strength.
To take the photo below, I used a torch (flashlight) to cast a shadow.
Jake
Ethan asked for a “Jake Cake”. How could I refuse?
Everybody loved it, though the kids were a little freaked when I chopped his head off!
Slimer
Eamon always presents me with interesting ideas, and this year was no exception: Slimer from the Ghost Busters movies I got to make a green sponge!
Clearly the colour was not a problem for the kids…
100 Years of Jezebel
As you may remember, Jezebel is a 1916 Dennis N type fire engine and mascot of the Students of the Royal College of Science, one of the founding three Colleges of Imperial College. Somehow, 30 years have passed since I made her 70th birthday cake!
This one, in honour of her 100th, needed to feed 150 people – and had to be made in my Mother’s kitchen while I visited from New York, which presented its own challenges!
I made six rectangular cakes, using strips of damp towel round the tins to ensure even rising, and arranged them into a 15″ slab, sandwiched with buttercream and strawberry jam. I covered this in fondant, then started creating Jez herself, with the logo from the invite as my template.
Once the cake was complete, I had to get it safely up to South Kensington – about 70 miles in the boot of a car. Luckily, I found Cake-Stuff.com, a great website that sells strong boxes for cake transportation, amongst other very useful items, including the very cool car magnet shown below!
The cake arrived safely and went down very well at the beautifully-organised dinner hosted by the RCS Motor Club.
(Note, Cake Stuff is an awesome website for cakeboards, boxes, and other vital supplies!)