Forever Nigella: Diamond Jubilee

I’m a person of many lists. A product of having worked in the NHS, I have that time wasting habit of triplicating all my lists. One on paper, another on an app on my phone and just in case a) the app crashes, and b) the ink on my paper smears, I have a back-up app that I will never remember to refer to if a or b happens.

We are still recovering from yesterday’s small party. Dishwashing grounded to a halt because we ran out of washing up liquid and the 7th Wonder is still in the t-shirt she fell asleep in last night, which incidentally was the t shirt she was wearing for most of yesterday. The dirt and chocolate stains on her face is today’s though.

My list, in triplicate reminded me today that I have some outstanding blogging challenges that I had set out to do. The end date is looming and it felt like one of those days where I just fancied a couple of hours of not talking much and just completing a task.

This one is the Forever Nigella challenge by Maison Cupcake. This month’s is hosted by Nelly’s Cupcakes and the theme is Diamond Jubilee .

Since I had some leftover fondant from making the 7th Wonder’s cake for her party, I decided this cake would have to involve a fondant covered cake.

I found a jar of this on our mantlepiece, yes, mantlepiece and the decision was pretty much made for me.

I have in the past made Nigella’s chocolate cherry cupcakes and this time, I poured the cake mix into a square tin and baked it for around 40mins.

Those who are interested in reading this recipe, Google is your friend.

All I did was cut the cooled cake into four and stacked the squares with chocolate ganache sandwiched between them.

I then covered the sides and top with chocolate ganache, pushed a lolly stick from the top to bottom and stuck it in the fridge to set.

During that time, I made a cut of the guardsman out of fondant, using several layers to achieve a more three dimensional effect. The details are pretty crude and I have to admit, I’m never any good with it.

It is often around the time when I am rolling out the fondant to cover the cake with that I lose the will to live. There is never enough space on the work surface and this time, the colourful nonpareils that I had used for yesterday’s spiral cookies seemed to have reemergence from the edges of the surfaces and assimilating themselves into the fondant.

Usually it is around this time too that I realise that I might not have enough fondant and that a thin 10inch tall rectangular cake is gonna be a mighty bitch to cover with fondant.

So after around half an hour of faffing, and it’s usually around this time that one of the children decides to ask me if God gets tired arms holding up all the clouds, the cake was finally done.

And true to the law of fondant sodness, I invariably end up accidentally denting the side of the cake with a palette knife.

Ho hum.

Anyway, here is my contribution. I think he looks pretty cute and not too bad for an impromptu idea, I think. I think I’ll stick to covering cakes with Swiss meringue buttercream.

Lord knows how I’m going to divide this one up into nine.