Candy the Corgi : A Cake fit for a Queen or at least her birthday !

You can't have a birthday without a cake, and that includes royalty ! In honour of The Queen's 90th Birthday today, Stork have come up with this amazing Candy the Corgi cake and they challenged us to recreate it.

Well, we rose to half of the challenge, but because the kids were way too impatient to eat their cake (and Sophie had also scoffed that there was no way I'd manage to recreate the corgi's head in chocolate and icing !), we decided to go for a cheat's option and make a paper head and tail instead of an edible one ! OK, it's a cop out but half of a corgi is still "cor !" and I was very impressed with the way my Swiss roll came out ! I was actually a bit worried about it being a bit too rich and sickly with the extra sugar and chocolate of the face too, because it is already incredibly sweet and creamy, with both a buttercream filling AND frosting.

Candy the Corgi Cake

ingredients :

for the cake :

25g Stork, melted

3 eggs

125g sugar

125g plain flour

1tbsp water

for the filling :

200g double cream

3tbsp honey

1tsp vanilla paste

125g apple compote/sauce (I left this out)

for the frosting :

125g Stork

250g icing sugar

75g white chocolate, melted and cooled

brown food colouring

for the corgi decoration (if you brave it !) :

70g milk chocolate candy melts

35g white chocolate candy melts

25g red candy melts

50g brown sugarpaste

Crack the eggs into a bowl with the sugar. 

Whisk with an electric mixer for about ten minutes until pale and fluffy.

Sieve in the flour in thirds and carefully fold it in. Melt the Stork in a small bowl, add the water and a large spoonful of the cake mix. Stir until combined then pour it back into the bowl and delicately fold it into the cake batter.

Pour the batter into a Swiss roll tin that is greased and then lined with greased baking parchment. Bash the tray on the work surface a few times so that the air bubbles rise to the surface.

Bake in a preheated oevn at 180° for 15 minutes until lightly browned and starting to come away from the edges. While it's cooking, lay out a slightly damp teatowel on the work surface, lay a sheet of baking parchment on top and sprinkle with a fine layer of sugar.

As soon as it's out of the oven, flip the cake out on to the sugar topped baking parchment.

Carefully peel off the baking parchment - use a knife or spoon to gently hold the cake down if it sticks in places.

Tightly roll up the cake, baking parchment and teatowel and leave to cool for 20 minutes. (I actually put mine in the fridge to finish it off.)

While it's chilling, prepare the filling (how poetic !) by whisking together the cream, honey and vanilla paste until it forms soft peaks.

Unroll the cake and cut off the edges with a serrated knife so that they look nice and neat. Making sure the cake is perfectly cold (or it will melt the filling), spread the honey cream filling all over the entire surface. Top with apple compote if you're using it. I think a tart jam like raspberry or blackcurrant would work well to offset some of the sweetness.

Roll it back up, removing the baking parchment as you go. You could actually stop here and already have a rather lovely Swiss roll.

Prepare the frosting by whisking together the Stork and icing sugar, then mixing in the melted and cooled white chocolate and brown food colouring. I didn't have brown food colouring so I used a mixture of orange and green. The colour was still a bit pale though so I added a few tablespoons of bitter cocoa powder. This gave it a better colour and also improved the taste. With hindsight, I think it would have been easier to just use milk chocolate rather than white chocolate.

Head over to the official Stork recipe (the link is in my first paragraph) if you want to make the Corgi face out of chocolate and icing.

Even with a paper face and tail, we still thought that our cake looked great (even if Pierre thought it was a rabbit !)

It's a lovely, very visually appealing cake, although I did find it a bit too sweet for my tastes.

The kids had no such qualms though. I wonder if this is what Her Majesty will be tucking into at the Palace today !

Disclosure : I received a shopping voucher to cover the cost of the ingredients.