Last weekend marked my parent’s 40th wedding anniversary. We went up to visit them and of course I took a cake. I had lots of ideas about what I could do, including a red velvet cake or a cake with hidden hearts inside, but in the end I decided to stick with a simple but effective large round cake with a musical theme, similar to the square Diamond wedding anniversary cake I made last year for a friend’s grandparents.
I made this cake with a light vanilla sponge using a slightly adapted recipe from my normal sponge. The cake was covered with vanilla frosting and ready to roll fondant icing then decorated with spun sugar hearts and a treble clef. I also added fondant hearts with a sugar pearl in the centre of each to the edges and around the “music”. Sugarpaste lettering and fondant ivy on the cake board with red candy hearts added the finishing touches.
For the cake:
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2 x 9 inch round cake tins
500g castor sugar
500g unsalted butter (softened)
7 large eggs (beaten)
4 tsp vanilla essence
500g self raising flour
- Butter and line the two 9 inch cake tins and preheat your oven to 170c
- Cream the softened butter and sugar in a freestanding mixer until smooth
- Add the vanilla essence to the beaten eggs then add 1/3 of the mixture to the buttercream
- Add 2 – 4 spoonfulls of the flour to help stabilise the mixture then add the next 1/3 of egg mix
- Repeat until all the egg has been added then fold in the rest of the flour
- Split the mixture equally between the two tins and bake in a 170 oven for 45 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean.
- Turn out the cakes onto wire racks to cool
Once the cake has cooled use a cake leveler or a sharp knife to level the cakes, then use vanilla frosting between the layers and to coat the outside of the cake. I made 3 quantities of my standard vanilla frosting, find the recipe here.
Roll out the fondant on a non stick mat or greaseproof paper, then carefully roll up the mat and fondant before carefully unrolling upside down on top of the cake. Peel off the nonstick mat / greaseproof paper and smooth the fondant over the cake. Check out the how to pictures in my Lego Superhero’s cake tutorial.
I mixed some red coloured water icing to pipe the music stave (lines) and made red coloured spun sugar for the hearts and treble clef.
For the spun sugar
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125g castor sugar
112g water
Red food colouring
Jam / sugar thermometer
Sheet of baking foil
Method:
- Lay out the baking foil ready to pour the molten sugar and sprinkle with freeze dried raspberries.
- Fill a bowl large enough to place your pan in with cold water and place to the side.
- Add a few drops of food colour to the water until you are happy with the shade.
- Dissolve 125g of castor sugar in 112g of water and heat in a pan. Do not stir as this will crystallise the sugar.
- Heat the sugar until it reaches 155c (the hard crack point) then immediately move the pan to the bowl of cold water for a few seconds to stop the sugar cooking any further. Make sure not to get any water in the pan, and dry off the bottom so no drips go on the foil when pouring.
- Drizzle the molten sugar from a spoon onto the baking foil in your chosen shape – in this case hearts and a treble clef. I also made little drops of sugar to edge the cake board. Please be careful as the sugar will be very hot.
- To remove any set sugar from the pan fill with water and boil for 5 min then pour away.
I added fondant hearts to the sides and around the musical decoration then used the end of a paint brush to make a dip in the centre of each heart, added a blob of edible glue to the centre of each heart with the same paint brush and added a white sugar pearl to each.
The cake was placed on a cake board covered in white fondant and decorated with fondant ivy and sugarpaste lettering.
The cake looks fab, bet your folks were thrilled with it 🙂 #recipeoftheweek
Wow!! Your parents must of been really pleased to receive such a beautiful cake! That really is lovely 🙂 #recipeoftheweek
This is amazing, well done #recipeoftheweek
A very effective looking cake! #recipeoftheweek
It looks amazing, well done indeed! #Recipe of the week
Such a lovely cake, I hope your parents had a lovely anniversary #RecipeOfTheWeek
This cake is fantastic, I bet they loved it! #recipeoftheweek x
Beautiful cake and happy anniversary to your parents 🙂 Thanks so much for linking up with #recipeoftheweek – I’ve pinned and tweeted this post and there’s a fresh linky going live at 6pm this evening 🙂