A Spoonful of Sugar

Maria's Cake

One 20cm hexagonal cake
250g plain buttercream
7tbsp strawberry jam
1kg fondant icing or sugarpaste
ivory, pink & green food colouring pastes
small marzipan figurines to decorate
small sugar flowers
icing sugar or cornflour (to roll out icing on)
25cm hexagonal cake board or round board.

Banana Cake

This makes enough to fill a deep 20cm hexagonal cake tin and leaves a bit left over to go into a 17cm springform for a tiny cook's perk cake.

250g unsalted butter, softened
350g caster sugar
4 large eggs
4 cups mashed bananas (250ml cups - this worked out to 4 large bananas and 2 small ones)
2 teaspoons bicarbonate of soda
4 tablespoons boiling milk
4 cups plain flour (sorry, forgot to weigh this!)
2 teaspoons baking powder

Preheat oven to 180C/Gas Mark 4. Grease and line tin.

Cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add mashed banana and mix thoroughly. Stir the bicarbonate of soda into the boiling milk and add to the creamed mixture. Sift the flour and baking powder together and fold nto the mixture.

Turn into the cake tin (tins) and bake for approximately 1 hour and 40 minutes until the cake springs back when lightly touched and a skewer through the middle comes out almost clean (the cake will continue to cook whilst it cools).

Leave in tin for 10 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack. The cake will take about 2 hours to cool fully.

NB. You can make a half-recipe and bake for 50 minutes.

Buttercream

125g unsalted butter softened (not too soft though)
250g icing sugar, sifted
2 teaspoons boiling water

Beat the butter until fluffy. Gradually add the icing sugar and beat in the boiling water at the very end. You can leave the buttercream plain or colour and flavour it.

Assembly

Once cake is completely cooled, slice the minimum necessary from the top to achieve a completely flat top. Cut the cake in half horizontally and centre the bottom part on the cake board.

Spread the buttercream over the bottom half evenly. Gently spread 4tbsp of the strawberry jam on top of the buttercream. Place and centre the top of the cake, making sure that all the edges are lined up.

Sieve the remaining jam and brush it evenly over the filled cake. Make sure you cover all of it so that the icing will stick properly.

Colour 700g of the icing ivory using the paste. Roll out and cover the cake, pressing and smoothing firmly to eliminate air bubbles.

Colour approx 100g of the icing green. Roll out thinly into 13cm x 3cm rectangles and cut notches down one side, halfway through the width to make "grassy" strips. Moisten the uncut side with some water and stick it to the base of the cake letting the cut edge fall down so that it looks like grass.

Colour 60g of icing pale pink. Roll out thinly and cut out 12cm x 5mm strips. Gently twist each strip and attach them to the upper corners of the cake (like a swag), using a drop of water as glue. Continue all around the top of the cake.

Roll small pieces of white icing into balls and attach them at the apex of each swag. Again, use water to attach them. These will neatly cover the joins of the pink icing ribbons.

Decorate the top of the cake with your chosen decoration. I used ready-made marzipan teddy bears and sugar flowers. Also, cut inch long strips of green icing and roll them up to make tufts of grass.