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You are here: Recipes > Autumnal Tree House Cake

Autumnal Tree House Cake

This is a very colourful autumn cake with a hint of Halloween. The tree house style cake is a popular design and great for birthdays or themed parties like Halloween.

Recipe by Bev Pettiford

Uploaded by

Time to make

Skill Level

Intermediate

Serves

15 people

Baking ingredients

  • 9 eggs
  • 18 oz butter
  • 17 oz self raising flour
  • 18 oz caster sugar
  • 2 tsp baking powder
  • 1 oz cocoa powder

Decorating ingredients

  • 500 g butter
  • 1 kg icing sugar
  • 25 g cocoa powder
  • 4 tbsp milk
  • 250 g Renshaw Lincoln Green Ready to Roll Icing
  • 250 g Renshaw Teddy Bear Brown Ready to Roll Icing
  • 250 g Renshaw Yellow Ready to Roll Icing

Instructions

Step 1

Mix together your baking ingredients and use half to bake 3 x 6" chocolate sponges at approximately 160°C / 140°C for fan oven / gas mark 3, for 35 minutes

Step 2

Mix together your decorating ingredients (butter, icing sugar, cocoa powder, milk) to fill and cover the cakes.

Step 3

Once your sponges have bakes and cooled, stack together with a little chocolate buttercream then shape to make a tree trunk. Cover the trunk with two thirds of the chocolate buttercream using a small pallet knife to create a bark effect.

Step 4

Cover a 6" or 8" cake drum in green icing by kneading the icing well until pliable and no cracks appear in the surface, rolling into a circle bigger than the board, and sticking it down with a little cooled boiled water.

Step 5

Use the remaining half of the cake batter to bake a 6" cake in a half ball pan, same temperature for 40 minutes. Once cooled, slice across to form two layers and fill and cover with the remaining buttercream. Place this on a 6" cake card to support this tier then place on top of the trunk using the buttercream as the glue (no need to use support dowels as this is a fairly small cake).

Step 6

Knead Renshaw Yellow Ready to Roll Icing until pliable and roll out on a surface lightly dusted with icing sugar. Using a large maple leaf cutter, cut 20 leaves from the icing. Colour all leaves in red, green, brown and orange edible tint dusts using a dry brush. Place leaves on roof starting around the bottom edge, overlapping in layers until you get to the top.

Step 7

Use Renshaw Teddy Bear Brown Ready to Roll Icing to make a door, stepping stones and chimney. Use red, orange, white and green icing for any remaining decorations such as flowers, vines, pumpkins or anything else you'd like to add.