Bake a Gruffalo cake for Red Nose Day

Ingredients for the cake:
375g soft butter or margarine
375g castor sugar
300g self-raising flour
75g cocoa powder
6 medium eggs
3 level tsps baking powder

For the butter cream
500g softened butter
750g sieved icing sugar
2-3 tbsps hot water
750g dark chocolate drops

For the decoration
1kg green icing
250g white sugarpaste
50g orange sugarpaste
25g black sugarpaste
50g of red sugarpaste or a round, red sweet.
Purple food colour

You will also need:
1 x 10” square cake tin
14” cake drum (square)
1 x 10” square piece of card
1 satay stick
2 lengths of 20 gauge white food grade wire
Photograph: Macmillan Children’s Books

Recipe
1. Bake the cake. Pre-heat the oven to 180C (350F, gas mark 4). Grease the tin and line the base. Place all the ingredients into a food mixer or large bowl and mix at high speed until smooth. Pour the mixture into the tin and bake for 1¼ - 1½ hours or until firm to the touch and a knife inserted in the middle comes out clean. Allow to cool in the tin for a few minutes, then turn out onto a rack to cool completely.
2. Make the butter cream. Put the butter into a large bowl or food processor, together with the hot water, and mix well. Beat in the icing sugar a little at a time, mixing until it is light and creamy. Melt the chocolate drops and add to the butter cream, beating well until mixed together.
3. Once the cake is completely cold, split it carefully in half horizontally, using a serrated knife. Spread one half with about a third of the butter cream, and sandwich the two halves back together again Photograph: Macmillan Children’s Books

Cover the cake board
Dust the work surface with a little icing sugar and roll out the green icing to a size large enough to cover the cake board. Dampen the board with a little water and lay the green icing over it, trimming the edges with a sharp knife Photograph: Macmillan Children’s Books

Create the Gruffalo shape
With a Gruffalo picture as a guide, draw out a rough shape for his head onto the piece of card Photograph: Macmillan Children’s Books

Cut out this shape with scissors and lay it on top of your cake Photograph: Macmillan Children’s Books

With a serrated knife, cut carefully around the template through the cake layers. Remove the template and cut away horizontally the top layer of the Gruffalo’s head, above and below the jaw, to emphasise his big jaw! It is up to you how much you play around with the shape here: you can curve the edges or just keep it all flat for a simple version Photograph: Macmillan Children’s Books

Decorate the cake
Next you will need to coat the whole cake in chocolate butter cream. Use a palette knife to spread a thick layer all over, leaving no cake uncovered. Once the cake is fully coated, use a fork to rough up the butter cream to make the Gruffalo’s fur Photograph: Macmillan Children’s Books

You are now ready to start adding the Gruffalo’s features. Start by kneading the orange icing until soft. Halve it and roll into balls for the eyes. Push these into position in the butter cream. Roll the black icing into a long sausage for the mouth, two smaller sausages for eyebrows and two small dots for the pupils. Push the mouth and eyebrows into the butter cream and stick the pupils in place with a tiny dab of water Photograph: Macmillan Children’s Books

With the white icing make five small square shapes and one long pointed shape for the teeth and two larger sausage shapes with pointed ends for the horns. Push the teeth in place, then stick one horn onto the board with a little water. Push a satay stick halfway into the other horn and use the stick to secure it to his head Keep any leftover white icing. Use the red icing or sweet to make his Comic Relief nose! Photograph: Macmillan Children’s Books

To make the whiskers, cut the food grade wire into 10 pieces and stick them into the cake all around his snout. Finally, add a small amount of purple food colour to the remaining white icing and make four purple spiky shapes. Stick them onto the board down the Gruffalo’s back with a little water Photograph: Macmillan Children’s Books

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Photograph: Macmillan Children’s Books