My favourite cake

Easter 2014/ Mum's birthday

Being away for Mum's birthday meant I wasn't able to make her a cake, which I was a bit disappointed by as I had quite a few ideas, but I also had similar ideas for an easter cake. Rather than making two separate cakes, I decided to combine a couple of the ideas I had, including practising with some of my new icing nozzles. Mum's not too keen on chocolate cake but wanted something more interesting than a Victoria sponge so I settled on a vanilla sponge sandwiched with lemon curd and lemon buttercream.

It would be no easter cake without a few mini eggs! I used quite a thick layer of lemon curd as it is one of my favourites and a really easy way to add a lot of flavour and moisture, and a much thinner layer of buttercream. I essentially crumb coated the top of the cake with an extremely thin layer of the lemon buttercream, as none of my family are particularly fond of icing, except me! Using a star shaped nozzle, similar to a Wilton 1M, I piped stars all the way around the cake, building up height to prop up the eggs. This definitely takes some practise and I tried not to worry about any uneven stars and was pleasantly surprised with the outcome.

As the cake was largely to celebrate Mum's birthday, I used some wafer daisies which she really likes as they aren't too sweet. The pastel colours also worked well with the easter element of the cake, particularly the lemon buttercream. I do use these sparingly though as they are very expensive for 12 little flowers.

Overall, mum really liked her cake, no one complained about there being too much icing, and I'm really starting to see my piping skills improving. Practise really does make perfect(ish)!