Novelty and Fantasy Cakes Recipes - Strawberry Basket Cake

Ingredients

• sponge cake baked in a 450g loaf tin

• 45ml apricot jam, warmed and sieved

• 675g marzipan

• 350g chocolate flavor butter icing

• red food coloring

• 50g caster sugar

• small star nozzle

• small greaseproof paper piping bag

• 10 plastic strawberry stalks

• 30 x 7.5cm strip foil

• 30cm thin red ribbon

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Method:

1. Level the top of the cake and make it perfectly flat. Score a 5mm border around the edge and scoop out the inside to make a shallow hollow.

2. Brush the sides and border edges of the cake with apricot jam. Roll out 275g/10oz/ scant 2 cups of the marzipan, cut into rectangles and use to cover the sides of the cake, overlapping the borders. Press the edges together to seal.

3. Using the star nozzle, pipe vertical lines 2.5cm apart all around the sides of the cake. Pipe short horizontal lines of butter icing alternately crossing over and then stopping at the vertical lines to give a basketweave effect. Pipe a decorative line of icing around the top edge of the basket to finish.

4. Tint the remaining marzipan red and mould it into ten strawberry shapes. Roll in the caster sugar and press a plastic stalk into each top. Arrange in the "basket".

5. For the basket handle, fold the foil into a thin strip and wind the ribbon around it to cover. Bend up the ends and then bend into a curve. Push the ends into the sides of the cake. Decorate with bows made from the ribbon.