I made this cake for a competition with the theme, 'Best of British', and I thought, what is more British than a street with a hole in it?
Using a rich fruit cake mixture gives this big cake strength and stability for a celebratory centrepiece, but also means that it lasts a long time.
Preparation Time: 3 hours plus soaking and cooling time
Cooking Time: 2 hrs 10 minutes - 2 hrs 25 minutes
Serves: 50
Ingredients
For the Cake
875g soft dark brown sugar
1.5kg sultanas
1.25kg wholemeal self-raising flour
5 eggs
1.25L boiling water
5 teabags
For the Biscuits
175g wholemeal flour
85g margarine
75g dark brown soft sugar
1 tbsp golden syrup
1 tbsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground allspice
For the Decoration
4 liquorice discs
300g blue sugar paste
1.25kg white sugar paste
Black icing pen
Edible glue
Edible silver spray
Equipment
12" x 12" square cake tin
1L loaf tin
15 cocktail sticks
small square sugar paste cutter
Method
To Make The Cake
Put the teabags in a bowl and pour in the boiling water.
Mix the sultanas and sugar together, then stir it into the tea and leave it to soak overnight.
Pre-heat the oven to 180 ༠C/ 160 ༠C fan/350 ༠F/4 Gas.
Fold in the flour, and beat in the eggs.
Spoon 1/5 of the mixture into the loaf tin, and the rest into the square cake tin.
Bake in the oven for 1 hour 45 minutes, then take out the cake in the loaf tin. Cover the large cake with baking paper to prevent the top from burning, and continue to cook for another 15 - 30 minutes.
To Make The Biscuits
N.B. This will make more biscuits than you need, but it is good to make spares in case some get broken.
Pre-heat the oven to 180 ༠C/ 160 ༠C fan/350 ༠F/4 Gas (or leave it on after baking cakes).
Mix the flour and spices together.
Melt the margarine, sugar, and golden syrup in a saucepan.
Beat the syrup mixture into the flour to form a sticky dough.
Roll out the dough and carve out road sign shapes. E.G. triangles, rectangles, ‘H’ shapes.
Poke cocktail sticks on either side of the biscuits.
Bake in the oven for 10 minutes, and allow the biscuits to cool.
Assembling and Decorating
Cut a square out of the centre of the cake and put the piece to one side.
Brush edible glue over the surface of the cake.
Roll out the white sugar paste and cover the large cake, then cut out the piece over the hole.
Using a square sugar paste cutter, make light indentations on the sugar paste (make sure not to actually cut it).
Spray edible silver paint to make it look like paving slabs.
Stick four ‘H’ gingerbread biscuits around the hole, one on each side.
Brush edible glue over the triangular biscuits, then cover it with white sugar paste.
Using the black writing icing, make road symbols and warnings, such as ‘!’, ‘Men at work’, and ‘Pedestrians —>’.
Decorate these around the edges of the cake.
Crumble any spare biscuits to make it look like gravel, and sprinkle it around the hole.
Roll out the blue sugar paste.
Brush edible glue over the loaf cake stick the cut out cake piece on top on one end.
Cover the cake in blue sugar paste, except for the front of the cake piece. Cover this in the remaining white sugar paste to look like the window.
Place one liquorice discs on the bottom of each side of the cake to look like wheels.
Place the car cake next to the pavement cake.
Categories
#Cake
#Novelty
#Celebration
#Fruit
#Gingerbread