James wanted to make a birthday cake!

 

James's favorite birthday cake recipe is for a chocolate Madeira cake with cherries in, marzipan on the outside, covered all over with chocolate...  This year he opted for white chocolate with a dark chocolate swirly web pattern on it.

 

We need to make a BIG cake, so all his class at school can have a bit!  Here's the recipe:

 

Pre-heat the oven to 170 degrees C.  Line a 10" loose based cake tin with baking parchment: set aside for later.

 

10 oz self raising flour

2 oz good cocoa powder

1 teaspoon baking powder

8 oz caster sugar

8 oz butter (NOT marge!)

6 large eggs

8 oz natural dyed glace cherries

 

Cream the butter and sugar together, and add the eggs.  Beat them in well.

Add the flour, cocoa powder and baking powder, a little at a time and mix in thoroughly.

Add the cherries and mix through evenly.

Spread evenly into the lined tin.  Bake for 1 hour and 30 minutes, turning the oven down to 150 degrees C half way through.  Take out of the tin to cool on a rack, removing all the paper.

Cover the top and sides of the cake with one quantity of marzipan (see the Christmas recipes for this).

Melt three 12 oz of white Belgian Chocolate and spread evenly over the cake.  decorate with a few ounces of melted dark Belgian Chocolate.  put to set in the fridge.

 

Below you can see how James helped to make the cake, and what it looked like after I decorated it!  James was in bed by the time I did this!

 

Creaming the butter and eggs together.  James has ALWAYS liked using the hand held mixer, since he was really too small to hold it! Copy of Jamescake1.JPG (211778 bytes)
Copy of Jamescake4.JPG (68406 bytes) Banging the eggies!  Luckily he didn't hit this one so hard he cut it in two!  It has been known...
Thumb in... Copy of Jamescake2.JPG (115961 bytes)
Copy of Jamescake3.JPG (48187 bytes) ...and schloop!  In it goes!
Dry ingredients weighed and waiting... Copy of Jamescake5.JPG (77014 bytes)
Copy of Jamescake6.JPG (53777 bytes) Scraping the sides down into the bowl to get it all mixed in!
Ooer!  Me favourite cook book is getting a little worn in places!  You can tell I use this section a lot, because this is where it falls open at, and where the pages drop out... Copy of Cookbook.JPG (126177 bytes)
Copy of Finished cake.JPG (92691 bytes) The finished cake.  My cake platter is only just big enough for this one!  When I do the BIG cake (i.e. the one that fits in the fluted German cake tin), I have to put it on a tray!

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