Saturday, 14 September 2013

Forget Sand Castles, We Made a Cake Castle !


I received these fabulous silicon cake moulds - one in the form of a castle and one in the shape of a rose - at the start of the summer holidays from The Baking Boutique on QVC. I must admit, I found the whole idea of making a shaped cake a bit daunting. I had visions of it falling apart when I took it out of the mould or totally sticking in the mould and breaking when I prised it out - but we bit the bullet this week and had a go at making a castle-shaped cake.

I decided to use my failproof banana bread recipe because it makes a pretty resistant cake that would be much less likely to break apart than a sponge cake. 


The Madhouse Mini-testers were all excited at the prospect of having a castle-shaped cake so they wanted to join in. Pierre was on banana-mashing duty.


While Sophie mixed up the cake batter.


My normal quantities make up a fairly big cake so I guessed that the proportions would be ideal for filling up the cake mould. It's quite hard to judge how much cake mixture it needs as it's such a weird shape. As you can see, I was miles out and only had enough to fill it about 2/3 of the way up. Having just used up my last bananas, I contemplated "watering down" the mixture with milk or adding some more cake mix without the bananas but I decided that would be a recipe for disaster and that I'd just cross my fingers and hope that the cake would rise during the cooking process.


Unfortunately it didn't so I ended up with a stunted castle !


But it didn't matter because it still looked fabulous ! It plopped out of the mould really easily, even if I hadn't greased it, kept its shape perfectly and was instantly recognisable as a castle.


The kids were absolutely wowed - well, so was I to be honest !


It looked great as it was ...


... but was even better once we'd gone around and iced it to add some detail.


Sophie and Pierre decided to add some finishing touches - edible glitter rocks, white chocolate drops and milk chocolate biscuit balls.


Here's our finished design, with SS in chocolate on the door for the Something Special party that we took part in this week (which I'll be telling you more about in a later blogpost, once I've got my hands on the photos !).

As the castle cake has all been eaten already, the Madhouse Mini-testers want to make a rose cake now. Maybe tomorrow !

product info : The Baking Boutique 2 Silicone Rose & Castle Cake Moulds
Item no.800578 From £14.75
Available from www.qvcuk.com/

Disclosure : I received the cake moulds in order to write an honest review.

Other reviews you may be interested in :

Ozeri Green Earth Frying pan review

5 comments:

  1. Wow the cake looks fantastic I might have a go myself! I love the idea of cake moulds x

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    Replies
    1. It worked so much better than I expected - can't wait to have another try now !

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  2. I was wondering if these intricate cake forms are difficult to work with. Looks fab!

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    Replies
    1. They are difficult to wash up though, I've discovered !

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