Lemon drizzle is one of my favourite cakes to eat and make. A very good friend of mine doesn’t like lemon related sweet treats and I have to say, when I found out, she went down in my estimations slightly. I just don’t understand.
Lemon drizzle seems to be divided into two camps; those with a crunchy topping and those without. I prefer those without, the drizzle of my dreams is soft, tart and saturated in lemon sugar syrup without leaving crystals of sugar on the top. Here’s how I do it:
Ingredients:
175g margarine/soft butter
175g caster sugar
3 eggs beaten
zest of 3 lemons BUT NOT THE PITH!
3 tbsp whole milk
175g self raising flour
juice of 3 lemons
50g caster sugar
Grease and line a 20 x 20cm tin with greaseproof paper. I line like this. Use whatever size tin you have to hand, for a larger pan the bake time is usually less as the cake is less thick. For a smaller tin the bake time is usually longer. You’re looking for the edges of the cake to be pulling away from the sides and for a skewer to come out of the centre clean.
Preheat the oven to 170C. Check the rack is in the centre of the oven. Cream the margarine/butter with 175g caster sugar until really light and creamy. Takes about 4 minutes in a stand mixer. Add the beaten egg gradually, dribble by dribble. Then add the zest and the milk. Worry not if the mixture curdles. Fold in the flour with a metal spoon, pour into your tin, level with the back of a spoon and bake for 20 – 25 minutes until golden on the top and a skewer comes out clean from the middle.
Leave to cool slightly on a wire rack still in the tin and then make the sugar syrup by heating the juice of 3 lemons with 50g of caster sugar for about 2 minutes until the sugar dissolves and is just starting to bubble away. Poke lots of holes in your cake with a skewer and pour the syrup over the top, being careful not to let it all seep down the sides and drizzle the bottom of your cake only.
Then (now this is the important bit), lay out a large piece of foil, then on top of it a large piece of greaseproof paper – they need to be big enough to use as wrapping paper for your cake. Pick your drizzle cake up by the greaseproof paper it sits on in the tin and move to your wrapping paper. Then wrap your cake carefully, using the foil to fold the edges over. Leave the cake to cool like this. The heat of the cake and the lemon sugar syrup combine to create the most moist, zingy lemon sponge. Just the way I like it.
I know. I’m as bad as all those retailers decking the aisles with tinsel in August. I just can’t help it though and I don’t care who knows it. I love Christmas. I love it! I want to live in a festive schmaltzy film. I want to wake up on the 25th December and find the Santa sack from my childhood nestled at the end of the bed fit to bursting with chocolate coins and maybe even a pink snail Keeper toy. I want flapjack covered with a layer of mincemeat and grated marzipan in October. Well okay then.
Ingredients:
175g butter
75g brown sugar
30g golden syrup
Pinch of salt
175g oats
25g rice crispies
100g sultanas
Half a jar of mincemeat
Half a block of marzipan, cold from the fridge
I basically followed an old faithful flapjack recipe but you should use your favourite. Pop the oven on at 140C or whatever your recipe says. Then I melted the butter, sugar, syrup and salt in a saucepan (careful measuring out too much syrup, your flapjack won’t hold a slice as well) until just about to bubble. Next I added the oats, rice crispies and sultanas and gave the lot a good stir until completely covered.
I tipped into a silicone tray (so I could avoid any lining activity) that measures about 20 x 24cm and flattened with a metal spoon until level. Then I very carefully spread half a jar of mincemeat (I used ready made stuff this time but I will most definitely be making my drunken cherry brandy mincemeat very soon) on the top of the flapjack – just a very fine smear, not huge dollops of the stuff. Careful the knife doesn’t rip through the delicate uncooked oats. On top of that I grated half a block of cold marzipan (grates better when colder, use the course side of the grater) and then baked for 30 minutes until golden brown on top. It looks like a pie topped with grated cheese pre baking. Do not be alarmed.
Leave to cool in the tray and only cut when cold or it all falls apart on you.
I enjoyed mine whilst writing my day dream Christmas list.
Mr Bell has taken to drinking bourbon late at night. Just the one mind. He calls it a nightcap. I think it’s his 40s gently approaching. I love the smell of bourbon but sadly not the taste, so with that in mind I’ve mixed it up with silky walnuts and sweet syrup to make this Autumn pud. Even non bourbon lovers like me go back for seconds. (And yes, they are dinosaurs on the top… nothing unusual about that in our house. We are pro dinosaur.)
Ingredients:
250g plain flour
50g icing sugar
125g cold butter
1 medium or large egg
400g golden syrup
Juice of one lemon
10mls bourbon
150g fresh breadcrumbs
Zest of 2 lemons
100g walnuts
A little milk
A tablespooon of brown crunchy sugar
Make your pastry by mixing the flour and icing sugar together, rubbing in the butter (or whizzing in a food processor) until it looks like very fine breadcrumbs and then add the whole egg. Use a blunt knife to pull the breadcrumbs together, then use your hand to squidge the pastry up until it forms a ball. Don’t add any more liquid, it will come together in the end. Wrap in clingfilm and rest in the fridge for 1 hour.
Whilst the pastry is resting add the zest of two lemons to the breadcrumbs, mix and set aside. Then pour the golden syrup into a saucepan (I weigh directly into the pan on digital scales and buy the squeezy bottle version of the golden syrup to save mess.) Next add the juice of one lemon (you will have one lemon leftover which has been alleviated of it’s zest. I suggest you either stuff it into a roasting chicken or pour boiling water over it and drink as a breakfast cleanser after a night on the tiles.) Lastly the bourbon and heat on the hob gently for about 4 minutes until it’s more watery in texture than when you started. Then add the breadcrumbs and zest and stir well. Take off the heat and set aside to cool. Preheat the oven to 180C/Gas 4 about 15 minutes before your pastry has rested for an hour.
Roll your pastry on a floured surface working in one direction only (don’t vigorously roll backwards and forwards, this makes for tough as old boots pastry), picking it up and turning it after each few rolls to ensure you end up with a rough circle shape rather than a very long piece of pastry. Once about 3mm thick all over pick it up by placing both hands flattened, fingers apart and palm side up under the pastry circle and move over the top of a loose bottomed flan tin (mine was 24 cm across) – remove your palms and then push gently into the sides of the tin. Use a sharp knife to trim the pastry from the sides and if you like make a pretty pattern on the pastry edge using a fork/knife.
Place a sheet of baking paper over the pastry case, fill with baking beans or uncooked pulses/rice and then bake for about 10 minutes until the edges are just very light brown. Watch like a hawk! In the meantime crunch up the walnuts by placing them in a bag and bashing with a rolling pin and try and cut some nice shapes from the leftover scraps of pastry. Don’t re-roll more than once or it’ll be a bit tough and no-one likes that.
Once the edges of the pastry are brown, remove the baking paper and beans and bake nude for a further 2 – 3 mins. Then place the bashed up walnuts on the bottom and over that spoon the breadcrumby mixture and tease to the edges.
There isn’t loads of this, just enough. Brush a little milk (or egg wash) over the edge of the pastry case then pop your extra pastry shapes over the top of the tart, overlapping the edge slightly if you like.
Brush these with milk and sprinkle brown sugar over the top. Bake for 15 – 20 minutes, again watching like a hawk.
Enjoy warm or cold with cream or custard or bourbon ice-cream. Now there’s a thought.
(This time two years age I was just celebrating the arrival of my second son and munching on these! Ah how time flies when you’re making pastry dinosaurs…)
Healthcliff has stolen Autumn and replaced it with something altogether more misty and mysterious. With him in mind I thought a biscuit with walnuts was in order, a manly nut if ever there was one. Add some Dairy Milk and I may have a biscuit to tame even the wildest moor-roamer.
This made a baker’s dozen though I admit the sizes were rather haphazard.
Ingredients:
115g salted butter
60g icing sugar (plus 2 tbsp extra for rolling the biscuit dough in)
100g plain flour
20g cornflour
80g milk chocolate cut into half cm-ish chunks
60g chopped walnuts, not too fine, about 1cm pieces
Get the oven on to 180C/Gas 4 and find two baking trays. Cream the butter and icing sugar together until really light and fluffy. I used a stand mixer for about 4 minutes. Then add the flour and cornflour and mix again with your stand mixer/handheld mixer or wooden spoon until combined and light and fluffy. Throw in the chocolate and walnuts and mix well.
Pop about 2 tablespoons of icing sugar on a plate, then take about a tablespoon of mixture, roll between your palms to form a ball, then roll the ball in the icing sugar (this doesn’t show once baked but acts as a great non stick layer), place on the tray and squash with your thumb until about 1cm deep. Continue to roll the dough until it’s all gone and don’t forget to put the biscuits about 6cm apart as they do spread a bit, then bake for 10 – 15 minutes until starting to brown at the edges.
Cool on the tray for 5 minutes and then move to a wire rack to cool completely otherwise you’ll end up with soggy centres. These are best eaten from a foil wrapper with a slight snarl and a hipflask of something boozy to keep you warm whilst roaming about.
I’m a bit of a late adopter with some things. I was almost a teenager when I learnt to ride a bike. I only recently got my first iPhone and even then it was a donated one. And I had never eaten, let alone made a cake pop until recently. Unlike the bike riding, I think the cake pop addiction is a habit here to stay. I am ever faithful to all things novelty.
Here are a few good tips I’ve found through trial and error to make perfect (well almost perfect) pops. This makes about 13 pops.
Take your leftover cake. If you are going to eat the cake pops within a couple of days then you can use your own homemade cake. If you want a little longer shelf life then buy one of the value blocks of Madeira cake from a supermarket. Usually has a good few weeks on it. I know, I know, homemade is best, but if I don’t say it someone will ask. As for flavours and types of cakes, I tend to use leftover vanilla cupcakes using a basic sponge recipe, however you can use any flavour you like. I haven’t tried fruit cake yet but I assume it would work okay. Just be careful of the weight of the pop. More on that later.
Use your fingers to break the cake up into breadcrumbs. You need a light touch rather than a squeezing touch. You can also use a food processor or the flatbeater in your stand mixer. I tend to use my hands as I don’t make cake pops in huge quantities. Leave your cake crumbs in a large bowl and then add your buttercream. (If you do make too much cake pop mixture then freeze at the ball stage and you’ll have more pops for a rainy day. A great tip from Jo.)
I use the old fashioned half butter (salted if you’re interested) to icing sugar buttercream recipe with a good tablespoon of vanilla extract, beaten in my stand mixer for 7 minutes until light and fluffy. However, for cake pops you really don’t need light and fluffy buttercream. So if you’re making buttercream especially for cake pop purposes then I would probably use a wooden spoon. You can use any flavour buttercream by the way… much like with the sponge.
Add the buttercream to the cake crumbs one tablespoon at a time and give the mixture a good stir. All cakes bind with buttercream differently. What you’re looking for is the cake to come together with the buttercream into a thick spread like consistency that will hold a shape. Too dry and the cake pop will crack whilst it’s chilling. Too wet and the buttercream will melt when you dip in the Candy Melts. Test it by taking a tablespoon of mixture and scrunching it up with your fingers. It should hold easily and then be happy to be rolled between your palms. Cover the mix with clingfilm and then refrigerate for about 30 minutes. If you haven’t make cake pops before add one teaspoon of buttercream at a time. You can add, but you cannot taketh away.
After 30 minutes you can start to roll your cake truffle mixture into balls about 2.5cm across between the palms of your hands. Any larger and you run the risk of the weight of them dragging them off the stick when dipping. Oh and don’t add oil to your hands or anything else to stop it sticking, just go with it. Once rolled, pop on a plate lined with greaseproof paper or back into the bowl you chilled the cake pop mixture in and either put in the freezer for 20 minutes or if you don’t have room in your freezer (my hand is firmly up) then cover and pop back in the fridge for an hour. You don’t have to shape your cake pops into balls of course, you can instead shape into cones to make Christmas trees or Santa hats. Whatever you fancy really. Here’s a little film to show how:
A few minutes before you’re ready to start to dip and decorate your pops, melt your Candy Melts. I use the microwave in 20 second blasts – the packets have all the instructions. If you do overheat them they seem to lose their shine when dry. Instead you could melt the Candy Melts over a pan of simmering water instead to control the temperature better. Make sure whatever you end up transferring your melts to that the receptacle is small enough in width to allow the Melts to have a little depth. You need to have something to dip into. (I know some of you will prefer to use chocolate to dip your pops into… I have found it less easy as it takes a little longer to dry. You just need a bit more practice I guess.)
Find something to rest your still wet pops in to allow them to dry. I use an upturned meatball griller (!) but you could also use a block of polystyrene with holes poked into it, an egg box with yet more holes poked into it or an upturned colander if the holes are big enough. Dip a lollipop stick about half a centimetre into the melted Candy Melts and then push the stick into the rolled cake pop until it’s just over half way in. Set aside and allow about a minute to dry. This stage is important as it stops the cake balls from falling off the sticks later.
I tend to get all the sticks into the cake balls first. It makes best use of the dry time required. It also makes sure your Candy Melts aren’t so hot that they make the cake expand and crack through the dried Candy Melts shell once you dip the whole cake ball. Using boiling hot Melts to dip cake into ends in cracked pops and possibly tears. (If it does happen just allow the pop to set and then dip again as if starting with a nude cake ball. Just a thicker coating but better than trying to patch the cracked pop up.) Here’s a little film of the whole process from stick dipping to sprinkling: (If you prefer to read instructions then they’re all below the film along with some pop-pics.)
Then take the stick with the nude cake ball now attached to it and dip into the melted Candy Melts. Don’t start to swish it about as it’s likely to fall off. If your receptacle isn’t deep enough to cover all of the cake ball then use a teaspoon to bathe the cake ball in Candy Melts, gently pushing it over the cake ball. Then use the stick to pick the cake pop up and hold the stick against the side of the dish and tap very gently encouraging the excess Candy Melts to fall back into the dish. You can turn the pop as you do this to ensure you don’t end up with a peak drying where the Melts drip into the dish.
Using Candy Melts is very easy but it’s different from chocolate as it dries more quickly. Either allow to dry by carefully placing the stick into your drying rack of choice or take this opportunity to hold the pop over an empty dish and sprinkle anything you fancy over the still wet pop. You can use a toothpick or fork to make a spikey cake pop if you like by pulling at the Candy Melts covering as it dries. You could also allow the pop to dry with one coating and then use an icing bag to dribble another colour over the pop… the possibilities are endless. Oh and you can even melt your Candy Melts into a disposable icing bag in the microwave, just balance in a jug.
P.S. For those who might ask the Reindeer and Santa faces are from Sainsbury’s, as are the red, white and green sprinkles. The holly leaves and berries are by Wilton (though you can get similar from Sainsbos) as are the little white snowmen on top of the Christmas tree pops. The holly leaves were attached using a white icing pen, the type you buy that comes with nozzles to just attach to a toothpaste type tube. Lastly if you have Candy Melts leftover you can allow them to dry, seal in a bag and then re-melt again the next time you need them. They don’t get upset by repeated remelting like chocolate does. (Same goes for if you’re a slow-dipper and they get too solid half way through the process, just re-heat.)
This is easy but oh so satisfying. I always seem to have leftover cheesecake topping. My tins can’t be big enough. In the past I have, shock horror, either thrown it away (!) or made a kind of baseless cheesecake in old Gu pots. Deeply disappointing to find no biscuit under your cheese in my opinion.
Here’s how to use up leftover cheesecake topping like this one. Just chill it in the fridge, covered up, for about 30 minutes. Then spoon onto the top of digestive biscuits and bake at 190C for about 4 minutes until the top has set but there’s no browning. (Mr B and I disagree regarding which way up the biscuit should be. I say writing side up, he says writing side down.)
Then either eat warm or chill and serve to guests. These will be making an appearance at the annual Bell Christmas party along with our veggie samosas. Easy peasy.
I love Autumn, in fact I love Winter too. Spring’s good. Summer I am shy of. It’s the need to bare flesh and drink white wine rather than red that just doesn’t sit too well with me. But Autumn with your ’70s brown and orange colour scheme and your leaving the house cold air slap in the face and your chin skimming scarves and your comfort blanket roast dinners and your warming, lip staining red wine and your scalding crumbles and your crack and crunch toffee apples and your oohs and aahs at the fireworks that last all of 2 minutes. Autumn, I love you.
Is there anything more Autumnal than oats, apples and blackberries? Here’s a little video I made with Sainsbury’s of these flapjacks. I *may* have taken two trays home from the shoot. They were that good.
Ingredients:
150g salted butter, cut into cubes
75g demerera sugar
120g golden syrup
300g porridge oats
50g apple, cut into chunks
100g blackberries (fresh or frozen)
Preheat the oven to 180°C, fan 160°C, gas 4. Grease a 20cm square baking tin and line with baking parchment.
Melt the butter, sugar and golden syrup together in a large saucepan. Stir in the porridge oats and fold through the apple and blackberries.
Pour into the baking tin and bake for 25 mins until golden. Cut into 16 squares while hot and then leave to cool in the tray.
If you like flapjacks but want to make your mix go a bit further you can save money by making these flapjack balls. (Also loved by kids, it might be their miniature nature.) Or if you want to make your flapjacks a little bit different adding jam to the middle is delicious. And my favourite alternative to regular flapjacks has to be this no bake version using muesli, butter and toffees. It’s very easy and very moreish. Dangerous!
Sometimes you shouldn’t ask questions in case you get the wrong answers. I once voiced a concern to an ex that I was carrying a good stone too much weight. He went on to agree and tell me in detail about how my back had the potential to look great if it weren’t so fat. That was Fat-Back Gate. Then there’s the time I asked my husband if he liked my semi vegetarian creation ‘Carrot Stew with a hint of Chicken.’ He called for a takeaway. That was and still is Carrot-Stew Gate.
Then I asked the lovely people on my facebook page and on Twitter what kind of brioche they thought I should make for the blog. So many amazing ideas. Many chocolate related. Though here I am posting a lemon recipe. I can only apologise. I somehow think this won’t become Lemon-Brioche Gate. These are that good.
Makes about 12
Ingredients:
1 tbsp castor sugar
3 tbsp water
7g sachet of yeast
1 tbsp castor sugar
Pinch salt
2 eggs
200g plain flour
Zest of 1 lemon
90g soft butter
An egg yolk
I make this in my Kitchenaid but you can make it by hand if you like. It’s very sticky though and hard work. It can be done.
Take the first tbsp of sugar and put in a saucepan with the water on the stove. Heat until dissolved. Then leave to cool a tiny bit until you can dip your finger into it. Then add the yeast and leave for 10 mins until it smells hoppy and beery. It may well be frothy.
Then pour the lot into your stand mixer and add the last tbsp of sugar, give it a mix with the dough hook, then add the salt and eggs, again mix with the dough hook. Then add the flour and mix for about 4 minutes. Lastly add the zest and the mix again – then whilst it’s mixing add the soft butter a teaspoon at a time until it’s all combined. Take the bowl off the Kitchenaid, over in clingfilm and leave on the side for about 1.5 – 2 hours until the dough has doubled in size.
When it has pop back in the mixer and give a 30 second mix to knock the dough back. Then cut into 12 pieces with scissors. It’s very sticky so have a little pot of flour on the side for dipping your fingers into. Then shape the brioche. I do this by taking the piece of dough (ie/ one of the 12) and cutting off a small piece about the size of my thumb nail. This is the bit to go on the top, the kind of ‘nose’ of the brioche. Then I take the rest of the piece of dough, roll in between lightly floured palms into a ball, then put on the work surface and pop a floured finger into the middle and move my finger about in a small circle quite fast to push all the way through until I have a doughnut shape. Then pop this into a buttered mini brioche mould (I use the ones that are about 5cm across from ebay – search under ‘cake moulds) and add the saved ‘nose’ to the top.
When you’ve made all 12, pop on a baking tray and cover loosely with a floured tea towel. (Not a damp one! This lowers the temperature of the air near the brioche as it drys out and makes the rise time too long.) and leave to proof for about another hour or until doubled in size. Paint the brioche with egg yolk and then bake in a preheated 200C oven for 15 – 20 minutes until brown and risen. The kitchen will smell of lemony cake. Eat warm or cold for breakfast. Oh and you can leave the proofed brioche in the fridge overnight, let it come to room temperature and then bake first thing. My boys are rather partial to these as a treat on a Sunday morning.
Forgive me the name. I remember many a cake being called this in the 80s, mostly on chain pub menus. Not sure I ever felt those mass produced, icy cold, spongey (as in sea sponge, not sponge cake) textured cakes lived up to the hype though. I recently tried the choc cake at Nando’s and well, it’s probably one of the best chain restaurant cakes I’ve ever tasted.* I helped my son eat a portion, as in I ate 85% of the slice.
This chocolate cake is light and tender, leading you into a false expectation of a not too chocolately hit. Then the ganache filling and icing hits you and it’s time to sit down, cram the rest into your mouth and maybe have a glass of milk to counter the effects of the richness. I decorated this particular cake rather conservatively as it was a gift for a friend. If I were decorating it for myself I’d cover the entire thing in chopped up chocolate bars and Smarties. Then I’d sit down with a large fork and dive straight in…
*No, Nando’s haven’t paid me to say that, however if they would like to give me a free slice of cake every now and again I’d be very much up for that. I have elasticated trousers ready should such an occasion arise.
Ingredients:
150g castor sugar
175g margarine/butter at room temperature
150g plain flour
3 large eggs at room temperature
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
2 tsp cream of tartar
30g cocoa powder
1 tbsp vanilla extract
35g Greek yoghurt
————————-
300mls double cream
200g dark and 100g milk chocolate, broken into squares
Chocolate bar(s) of your choice
Preheat the oven to Gas 4/180C. Butter and line two tins with greaseproof paper. I used 8.5 inch wide ones. Cream together the sugar and butter/margarine until light and fluffy. I use an electric hand mixer for this. Scrape down the bowl and add in the flour, eggs, bicarb of soda, cream of tartar, cocoa powder, vanilla extract and Greek yoghurt. Whizz up for about 4 minutes with the handheld mixer until all combined, light and fluffy.
Divide the mixture between the two cake tins and level with the back of a spoon. Bake in the oven for 30 minutes. Once the cakes are ready they should be well risen (one may have cracked a little – worry not) and a toothpick should come out of the centre of the cakes clean. Leave to cool for ten minutes in their tins, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
Make the chocolate ganache, pop the cream into a saucepan and heat until it starts to bubble, remove from the heat, then add the chocolate and stir, stir, stir until the mixture is completely molten and without any chocolate lumps showing. Leave to cool until the mixture has thickened, (this takes a couple of hours at room temp, you can pop in the fridge but the ganache may lose its shine) then spoon about two large tablespoons onto one of the cakes already secured to the cake board with a tiny bit of ganache . Spread evenly, though not all the way to the edges, possibly add a little more if you wish, then place the other cake on top.
Add the rest of the ganache to the top and then decorate with chopped up chocolate bar(s). Leave to set. Eat or give to people you love.
I am sure birthdays were easier when I was a kid. Obviously easier for me as all I did was turn up, (or rather get driven to the location) eat a lot of party food supplied by said venue, blow out the candles to a big chocolate cake and then smile sweetly for the camera. My Mum handed out party bags full of slices of cake wrapped in napkins, white chocolate mice, a pencil, a rubber shaped like a bear and maybe a bouncy ball. I imagine I also had some form of tantrum on the way home but luckily my memory has erased any such incident.
Talking to my Mum about the birthday parties of my youth versus the ones my sons enjoy, we couldn’t help but agree that the stakes have been raised. The last few parties my son has been to saw him leave with an individual cupcake sitting in a little box and instead of party bags full of tat, (is it just me who loves these Christmas cracker style gifts?) each left with a toy or book of almost equivalent value to the pressie bestowed on the birthday boy or girl. Partying and throwing parties is an expensive game.
Yesterday, when I asked what kind of birthday cake my eldest son might like for his fast approaching 4th birthday he replied firmly ‘a pirate ship please’. Slightly horrified at the thought of cake carving I suggested he might like a chocolate cake with some snakes and caterpillars and other bugs on it. He replied ‘yes Mummy and a pirate ship please.’ I should have kept my mouth shut.
Here’s a gorgeous cake both inside and out, impressive enough to get the all important oohs and aahs but easy enough not to result in any tears on your part. And if you have a boy and he’s not into pink then you could easily change the colours. You can watch the how to video here:
Ingredients:
– 375g unsalted butter, softened
– 375g caster sugar
– 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
– 6 medium eggs
– 375g self-raising flour
– a few drops red food colouring
For the filling and icing
– 7 tablespoons strawberry jam
– 200g unsalted butter, softened
– 500g icing sugar
– a few drops red and green food colouring
To decorate
– 1 x pack flower decorations by Sainsbury’s
– 1 x pack Happy Birthday candles
– 1 x pack butterfly cake decorations by Sainsbury’s
Preheat the oven to 180ºC, fan 160º, gas 4. Grease and line 3 x 15cm sandwich cake tins with baking paper.
In a large bowl beat the butter, caster sugar, vanilla extract, eggs and flour together with an electric hand mixer until light and smooth.
Divide 2/3 of the mixture between 2 tins. Add a few drops of red food colouring to the remaining mixture and stir to combine. Spoon the remaining mixture into the third cake tin. Bake the cakes for 35-40 mins or until a skewer comes out clean. Turn out onto a cooling rack and leave to cool.
Trim off the tops of each sponge using a bread knife to create a flat, level surface. Put one of the plain sponges onto a plate and cover the top with strawberry jam. Repeat with the pink sponge in the middle, then top with the third sponge.
To make the icing, whisk together the butter and icing sugar. Place ¼ of the icing mix into a separate bowl and stir in the green food colouring. Add the red food colouring to the remaining icing.
Spread the pink icing over the top and sides of the cake using a palette knife or a normal kitchen knife. Spoon the green icing into a piping bag, then pipe green stalks of the mixture up the sides of the cake.
Arrange the flower decorations on top of each stalk, then top the cake with the Happy Birthday candles. Decorate with the butterfly decorations before serving.
Save: Chocolate flower power cake
Birthdays can be expensive, with presents to buy and food to prepare. Try this chocolate cake recipe using Sainsbury’s chocolate sponge mix, simple buttercream icing and penny sweets to save a little money.
Cheat: Simple flower power cake
Save some time with the birthday preparations with Sainsbury’s ready-covered sponge cake, and simply decorate it how you wish to add that special touch. I wish I’d done this for Charlie’s first birthday, baking past midnight should be banned!
Magic: Flower power fairy cakes
Kids seem to adore cupcakes! Make the mixture as for the large cake, but then bake it in small fairy cake cases. Decorate with pretty coloured buttercream icing and the all important sprinkles.
I’m a mum of 3 boys, a cookbook writer and also a finalist on the 2011 Great British Bake Off.
I’ve decided to record the recipes I use, partly to save them somewhere and partly in case someone else might like to use them...
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Holly Bell 