Christening Cake, Sleeping Baby & Friends

A friend from work recently gave birth to her baby girl and I promised I would make her baby’s ‘naming day’ cake for their celebration day. I have made few novelty cakes over the years so I told her to find a picture she liked and I would make it for her. My eyes nearly popped out when I saw what she chose but I’m not one to shy away from challenges. The cake I knew would be easy, as would the fondant cuddly toys but the cot in itself would be too difficult with fondant icing so I cheated a bit and made the the cot structure out of art paper, actually P did that part for me, he’s sooo precise with things like that! This is where the original cake comes from flickr.

Here is the recipe and quantities required to make a banana sponge cakes for this christening cake.

Ingredients

350g SR Flour
350g butter
300g sugar
3 ripe bananas, mashes
5 eggs
500g fondant icing
large piece of artist card or wedding card paper
cake board

Method

Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4
Butter and line with greaseproof paper the base and sides of a deep 34cm x 24cm cake/roasting tin.
Place the butter and sugar in a large bowl and beat or whisk together until pale and fluffy.
Add the mashed bananas and whisk until creamy. It is likely to curdle with the bananas but don’t worry, carry onto the net step.
Add the eggs one at a time  beating well between each addition.
Fold in the flour with a large metal spoon, taking care not to knock out too much air.
Spoon the mixture into the tin and smooth the top.
Bake the cake in the centre of the oven for 45 minutes or until an inserted knife comes out clean.
Remove the cake from the tin and transfer to a cooling rack.
Allow to cool completely before cutting the cake into thirds. Each piece sits on top of the other to create the height.

Assembly of Cake

Butter Icing – 100g butter, 200g icing sugar, 2 tablespoons cocoa, beat altogether until smooth.


Spread butter icing on one third of cake and place another third on top, repeat with last third so all layers are sitting on top of each other.
Cover the all four sides of cake with the rest of butter icing and place cake onto a cake board.
Roll out 15og white fondant icing long and high enough to fit around the sides of the cake. You can do this in two pieces since the cot structure will cover any overlapping or messy bits. Place onto the sides of the cake starting at the back or front since these will be covered by the card.
Role out a rectangle piece of white fondant to cover top of cake, trim to fit.
Colour approx 150g of fondant pink  (for base trim, blanket trim & bunny rabbit) and roll out into strips about an inch thick. This is for the frill at the bottom of the cot. Attach one end to the cot with sugar glue or a bit of water, keep adding the rest of the strip pleating the fondant as you  work along the bottom of the cake.
Colour 100g of fondant icing pale green for the blanket and pillow. Roll a rectangle piece for the blanket allowing it to drop down the sides. Make the pillow by rolling a fat sausage piece of green fondant and then flattening it.
Use some pink fondant to make the trim on the blanket by rolling out a flat thin piece the same width as the blanket. Tuck under the blanket and fold the end over.
Colour remaining fondant blue, brown and grey for the animals and keep a small piece white for the eyes and a tiny bit of black.
The paper cot is 4 pieces of art card stuck together at the posts with double sided tape. The posts are rolled up pieces of card to fit the height of the cot. We measured and cut the rungs out of the cardboard to create the cot sides.

Here are some tutorials on fondant animals

Please feel free to ask any questions if you plan on making the cake yourself.