Children's Party Cakes Recipes - Mouse-in-Bed Cake

Ingredients

• 20cm square sponge cake

• 115g butter icing

• 45ml apricot jam, warmed and sieved

• 450g marzipan

• 675g sugar-paste icing

• blue and red food coloring

• 25cm square cake board

• flower cutter

• blue and red food coloring pens

---

Method:

1. Cut 5cm/2in off one side of the cake. Split and fill the main cake with butter icing. Place on the cake board, brush with apricot jam and cover with a layer of marzipan. With the cake off-cut, shape a hollowed pillow, the torso and the legs of the mouse. Cover with marzipan and leave to dry overnight.

2. Cover the cake and pillow with white sugar-paste  icing. Lightly frill the edge of the pillow with a fork. To make the valance, roll out 350g/12oz of sugar-paste  icing and cut into four 7.5cm/3in wide strips. Attach to the bed with I water. Arrange the pillow and mouse body on the cake.

3. For the quilt, tint 75g/3oz of sugar-paste  icing blue and roll out to an 18cm/7in square. Mark with a diamond pattern and the flower cutter. Cover the mouse with the quilt.

4. Cut a 2.5 x 19cm white sugar-paste  icing strip for the sheet, mark the edge and place over the quilt, tucking it under at the top edge.

5. Tint 25g/1oz/2 tbsp of marzipan pink and make the head and paws of the mouse. Put the head on the pillow, tucked under the sheet, and the paws over the edge of the sheet. Use food coloring pens to "draw on the face of the mouse.