Teddy is mad about owls so this inspired me to do a 'Woodland Themed' cake table for her 3rd birthday. The great thing about this one is you can use lots of natural coloured products such as mini pretzels, twiglets, crisps & breadsticks. This means that you are giving the little ones some healthy snacks and saving yourself from having to create/buy too many sweet treats.

The mushrooms were simply marshmallows topped with a strawberry and piped with dots of Royal icing. The hedgehog cakes were cupcakes covered in cream buttercream and then piped with chocolate buttercream (using a grass nozzle) to cover 3/4 of them leaving just enough space to pipe on eyes and a pointy nose.

The biggest challenge was the owl cake. I baked 2 x 1.5 ltre pudding basins using a 14 oz mix of Victoria Sponge (ie 14oz butter, 14 oz sugar, 7 eggs & 14oz self raising flour). I baked this at 170 for around 90 mins (check after 1 hr as ALL oven temps vary).

You will need- Buttercream (made with 10oz soft unsalted butter and 20oz icing sugar, beat for 5 mins) colour 1/3 cream, 2/3 brown, orange, black, green & white fondant icing, 2 leaf nozzle (I used a PME 53).

Cover the cake board with the rolled green icing. Crumb coat both cakes with a thin layer of buttercream. Secure one of the cakes in the centre of the board with a blob of buttercream. Place the other cake on top, flat side up. Use wooden skewers at an angle to hold the top one in place. Add more buttercream to the centre where the cakes meet to create the owl shape. Now pipe on the feathers in rows following the design above. Once the cake is covered you can add the beak, eyes and feet as above. I mixed a bit of the brown and the cream icing together to make the pale brown colour for the ears. I then just piped them on using the same feather technique.

If you would like to create this or something similar in a one to one private lesson with me then call- 020 3573 9135