Jubilee cake

Every year, in March there is a competition within the Marketing department at work they call the bake-off.

When I moved into the department you could imagine my excitement on hearing such a thing, alas for the first year they had me in Guernsey so I couldn't enter. So, last March came, diary checked, yup, I was going to be there for my first bake-off and the there is 2012, it just had to be a jubilee themed cake.

I spent many hours dreaming this beauty up, it was a little ambitious I must admit as before I made it I had never actually made a 2 tier cake before and it was only the second ever cake I had iced...oh well nothing to loose hey!

4 days (yes 4 actual days - a whole weekend and two evenings) later this is what I came up with....

If it weren't for the fact I had created the top tier first I probably would have left it as it was, as i thought it looked pretty nice as a union jack cake . . 

In case you wanna know how I did it? It was a Victoria sponge with jam and butter cream, covered with white Ready to Roll Icing, I coloured more icing with gel food colour  and rolled into strips and painstakingly  re-created the union jack.For the top tier I printed a picture of a crown on tracing paper, traced over it onto the icing, then painted over the embossed lines that had been created with a mixture of gold lustre dust and rejuvenator spirit - don't mix up too much as once as the alcohol evaporates REALLY quickly! the bunting and little balls were also made of fondant, but in hindsight I think they would have been much nice made of marzipan.  

Oh . . I forgot to mention. . I WON the novelty cake category, very chuffed with myself as I'm not usually a winner!