Well, this challenge was to make a joint 40th birthday cake, big enough to feed up to 100 people and make a statement in the middle of a festival site.
My best friend and her husband (also rather special) were having a mini-festival weekend to celebrate so hired a lovely little camp site, complete with river for paddling in and lots of bell tents.
Had my usual brainstorming session on Pinterest but didn't really feel very inspired and was quite concerned that making a tiered cake that might have to be kept in our bell tent with us and three kids overnight might spell squished cake.
Then it occurred to me that I could make three cakes of different sizes that would be big enough to feed everyone, but narrow enough to store. Also, just liked the idea that it was a kind of horizontally tiered cake.
I made one cake into the woodland area, another the camping area, the bonfire area a third and a tiny bell tent cake out front. I mounted them on a 16" cake drum decorated with a marbled blue fondant river and royal icing flooded grassy camping field.
The tallest cake was a multi-coloured vanilla almond sponge with clementine butter cream. The others were chocolate marble cake with marbled white and dark chocolate ganash. Then they were all covered with fondant and royal icing decorations with added bunting made from florist's wire and icing.
...because, kids love rainbow cake!!!
... and by the way... Bell tents look great but we won't be doing that again!! If there's ever a next time, we're hiring an airstream!
