Tuesday 30 August 2011

Happy Birthday J!!!

I cannot believe it! My baby is not a baby anymore!! He has turned 2 and to sound like the old saying "Hoe time has flown!" To celebrate we went to a farm nearby for a bit of a party and to feed some animals and have a tractor ride. Fun was had by all (though I do believe that most of the adults had more fun than some of the kids!).

To go along with the farm themed party, we decided to buy a tractor cake. However, after shopping around and being told that the cheapest quote would be £47.25 (!!!!!!!), I decided that it could not be that hard to make one myself. So after much research at the local library, I bought a rather fabulous book and decided to give it a go.

Now I need to point out hat I am by no means a fabulous baker, I want to be and I aim to be, but I am new to the world of cooking and baking, a complete novice and am teaching myself to cook and bake from scratch. Prior to doing this cake, I had only ever made a two tier cake, like a victoria sandwhich, once and thought that that was hard!

So after my said trip to the cake decorating shop in the village, I bit the bullet and started the cake.

Make 2 loaf cakes out of a recipe for a madiera cake or such like. I used a reciped for Vanilla custard sponge cake. It worked really well, as it stayed moist yet was easy to carve and strong enough to make a novelty cake from.

500g softened butter
3 cups white sugar
6 eggs
1 1/2 cups custard powder
4 cups self raising flour
1 cup milk
3 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 180C and grease two 25cm x 11.5 cm loaf tin
Cream butter and sugar and add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.
Gradually add sifted custard powder and flour and beat well.
Beat in milk and vanilla extract until combined.
Divide batter into the 2 loaf tins and bake for around 45mins.



Level the first loaf cake and cut 6cm off one end. From this small piece, shape a rectangle that is 2cm high x 6cm wide x 9cm long. This is for the bonnet of the tractor. The remainder of the loaf cake is for the main body of the tractor. Then coat each piece in butter cream or real icing, whatever you like. I used Betty Crockers butter cream and it turned out fab.



From the second loaf cake cut a rectangle that is 10cm high and 9cm wide fro the cabin. Cover this in butter cream. Leave the rest of this piece for the wheels.

Use the butter cream to stick the bonnet ontop of the main body of the tractor. Ice the main body of the tactor in whatever colour icing you want and place onto your cake board.


Then cover your cabin piece and bonnet piece. Place them onto the main body.



The only thing here was that our cabin was a little heavy for the base. Use  dowels/straws, toothpicks or whatever you fancy, to secure it in place. We had to use 6 wooden skewers, but next time we will use straws and a piece of thin card.

Make your wheels for the remaining cake, cover in butter cream and ice. Stick to the tractor with skewers and leave to set.


And Ta Da!!!!

I do have to say, that I am a little bit proud of it! I love the fact that it looks super homemade and a bit wobbly in places ( I think I can honestly say I am not going to make a living from novelty cake making )but we did it! J loved it and we had to hide it until Sunday as he wanted to play with it.

So my first homemade novelty cake. If I can do it, ANYONE can do it!!

The only thing now is we had such a good time making it (Si and myself), that I want to make another. Maybe we could have an all singing and dancing Christmas cake! We will have to see.

1 comment:

  1. It is fantastic, well done!
    Thanks for the recipe and the photos!
    Boo

    ReplyDelete