This wonderful Gruffalo cake - created by Jane Asher - is very lifelike, simple to make. and enormous fun! (You'll notice, of course, that he has a red nose: like all of us, he's supporting Comic Relief). This large cake will feed about 25 people, so why not have a Gruffalo party and invite all your friends?
Fri 18 Mar 2011 05.43 EDT First published on Fri 18 Mar 2011 05.43 EDT
Ingredients for the cake:
375g soft butter or margarine 375g castor sugar 300g self-raising flour 75g cocoa powder 6 medium eggs 3 level tsps baking powder For the butter cream 500g softened butter 750g sieved icing sugar 2-3 tbsps hot water 750g dark chocolate drops For the decoration 1kg green icing 250g white sugarpaste 50g orange sugarpaste 25g black sugarpaste 50g of red sugarpaste or a round, red sweet. Purple food colour You will also need: 1 x 10” square cake tin 14” cake drum (square) 1 x 10” square piece of card 1 satay stick 2 lengths of 20 gauge white food grade wire Photograph: Macmillan Children’s Books Share on FacebookShare on Twitter
Recipe
1. Bake the cake. Pre-heat the oven to 180C (350F, gas mark 4). Grease the tin and line the base. Place all the ingredients into a food mixer or large bowl and mix at high speed until smooth. Pour the mixture into the tin and bake for 1¼ - 1½ hours or until firm to the touch and a knife inserted in the middle comes out clean. Allow to cool in the tin for a few minutes, then turn out onto a rack to cool completely. 2. Make the butter cream. Put the butter into a large bowl or food processor, together with the hot water, and mix well. Beat in the icing sugar a little at a time, mixing until it is light and creamy. Melt the chocolate drops and add to the butter cream, beating well until mixed together. 3. Once the cake is completely cold, split it carefully in half horizontally, using a serrated knife. Spread one half with about a third of the butter cream, and sandwich the two halves back together again
Dust the work surface with a little icing sugar and roll out the green icing to a size large enough to cover the cake board. Dampen the board with a little water and lay the green icing over it, trimming the edges with a sharp knife
With a serrated knife, cut carefully around the template through the cake layers. Remove the template and cut away horizontally the top layer of the Gruffalo’s head, above and below the jaw, to emphasise his big jaw! It is up to you how much you play around with the shape here: you can curve the edges or just keep it all flat for a simple version
Next you will need to coat the whole cake in chocolate butter cream. Use a palette knife to spread a thick layer all over, leaving no cake uncovered. Once the cake is fully coated, use a fork to rough up the butter cream to make the Gruffalo’s fur
You are now ready to start adding the Gruffalo’s features. Start by kneading the orange icing until soft. Halve it and roll into balls for the eyes. Push these into position in the butter cream. Roll the black icing into a long sausage for the mouth, two smaller sausages for eyebrows and two small dots for the pupils. Push the mouth and eyebrows into the butter cream and stick the pupils in place with a tiny dab of water
With the white icing make five small square shapes and one long pointed shape for the teeth and two larger sausage shapes with pointed ends for the horns. Push the teeth in place, then stick one horn onto the board with a little water. Push a satay stick halfway into the other horn and use the stick to secure it to his head Keep any leftover white icing. Use the red icing or sweet to make his Comic Relief nose!
To make the whiskers, cut the food grade wire into 10 pieces and stick them into the cake all around his snout. Finally, add a small amount of purple food colour to the remaining white icing and make four purple spiky shapes. Stick them onto the board down the Gruffalo’s back with a little water
