Lego brick birthday cake

The Lego birthday cake took two attempts, the first one I baked and started to decorate but I wasn’t happy with it so I threw it in the bin and started again. So after a panic search on the web I found this Lego brick cake, a much simpler approach which worked well and gave Harvey, a lot of candles to blow out.

Making the sponge

To make the sponge I used Delia’s all-in-one sponge recipe. It’s great because you just throw all the ingredients into a bowl and then mix with an electric mixer. I doubled the weights and measures in this recipe.
I then split the mixture in two and using the multi-size cake tin from Lakeland I was able to bake two Lego brick shaped cakes.
I then put one on top of the other secured with jam to get the height.

Decorating the cake

Believe it or not this cake is actually covered in butter icing, it’s very easy to make and if you have a little bit of patience it’s possible to get it looking more like fondant.

Cover the cake in a thin layer of butter icing and allow it to set, this will keep all the crumbs in place.
Next cover the cake in a much thicker layer of icing. Smooth it out as much as you can paying particular attention to corners.
At this point I used a palette knife heated under a very hot tap to get the icing as smooth as I could.
Allow to set again. I did this by placing the cake in the laundry room with the A/C temp set to 18.
With a plain paper towel, one with no embossed pattern on it, or if you don’t have one some grease proof paper, place it on the cake and rub in a circular motion. If the paper sticks it’s because the icing hasn’t set enough, the icing must have a slight crust.
I made the Lego studs on the top of the brick by covering two Oreos stacked on top of each other in the same way. I have to say, this bit was quite messy.
The candles came from Spinneys and are held in place by a selection of Lego men kindly lent to us from one of Harvey’s friends.