European country cake

Miss Tween phoned on Monday.  I was unable to take the call,  and when I did get to look at my phone to call her back, I was a little worried.  I had many many missed calls from her.

She had to make a cake for her homework, and she couldn't do it at home because her parents kitchen was part way through being refitted.  It needed to be complex and complicated, like something form Bake Off.  It had to be a European cake.

I asked for clarification . Were we looking for a national cake of some country or other  or did it have to have a country theme (like colours, flag, you know the sort of thing).    It turned out that she wasn't really sure.

So, yes, of course she could come over on Wednesday after school and make a cake,  and I would see if I could come up with any ideas.

I guessed that people would already be making flag coloured sponges,  or icing cakes with flags, or whatever.     I wracked and wracked my brains.  DH and I chatted about it.  And then, out of nowhere, inspiration struck.

We were going to do Switzerland.

I desperately tried to find a suitable cake tin online, but there wasn't anything that could get here before Wednesday (and my local shops didn't have them).   In the depths of my cupboard I found a terrine pan,  so I had a go at making a base cake.

I had already looked up cake carvingon Youtube, so I knew that I needed a rigid serrated knife,  and I needed a firmer sponge.  One lovely lady suggested Madeira cake,  so I found a suitable recipe., and made the cake,

When it came out of the oven, as I expected, it hadn't risen enough. I calculated the volume of the tin, and the volume of the cake and compared them. The cake was 80% of the tin, so I needed to increase the ingredients by 25% *(Ha, maths, you can't get me.  I nearly only increased it by 20%,, but I' used to trixks like that!   T o my immense delight,  the second cake filled the tin exactly and was square!

I had a play with the first version, and realised that my initial idea (or cutting it along the diagonal length into 2 triangles) was unlikely to work,  Instead,  I had a play with carving, and achieved something...respectable.

I gave Miss Tween the ingredients list for the icing (Nutella and Philadelphia), but I already had the rest of the ingredients in my cupboard.

Wednesday came,  and we set to work as soon as she arrived.   Madeira cakes take a while to make because they aren't "all in one" cakes.    It took some time to get the base mix made,  and Miss Tween had to do it all herself.  It then took 45 minutes for the cake to cook, and then it had to cool.

We made the icing while the cake was cooking.  I wasn't sure that one batch was enough,  so Miss Tween had to run to the shop to get some more unsalted butter.   After we'd made the second batch  I had a minor heart attack when I notcied the foil lid of the Philadelphia tub.   How could we have missed that?!  What a waste of butter and icing sugar.   Disaster!

But then I realised that the foil lid is only an advert for a different flavour in their range.  What idiot thought that was good marketing?!

While we were waiting,  I got her to practise carving on my cake from the day before.  I showed he how to support the cake while slicing,  how too take a small bit off at a time,  how to clean the crumbs off (and why).

Then it was on to the real cake.

I made a template for her, showed her what to do woth the first one. She then took over and it took forever as she was, naturally, nervous about it.

 I cocked up slightly, I thought I'd made the gaps (in the template) big enough to get a small icing palette knife in, but I didn't.  It made the whole thing even more challenging that it needed to be.

We brushed away the crumbs, and then started on the icing.

 I showed her how to do the covering, and explained why we were decanting the icing , a bit at a time, into a separate bowl. [in case she got crumbs on her icing knife and transferred them to the icing bowl]

She started with the in-between bits,  then did the insde triangle sides,  then the outsides, then the top As time went on, she got better and more confident at it.  We stopped for dinner.

 Immediately after dinner,  she did the ends and the base,  re-covering the sides as well.  I got her to use a cranked palette knife for this.  She was insistent that she could do it with a flat one (she was understandably tired).   In a moment of slight exasperation on my part (I was also, understandably, tired),  I got her to try and do one side with the flat blade,  and I did the other side with a cranked blade.      She then swapped to the cranked blade without complaint.

And here we have it.

Switzerland in cake form.

UPDATE:  It was a success. All slices were quickly sold.

Although it's just occurred to me people might have been epecting a Toblerone flavoured cake.

Oh well.