• Turn your oven to 180 degrees C, ensure you have your shelf positioned to the middle of the oven and prepare your cake tin – greased bottom and sides with a greaseproof paper bottom also.
• Cream together the Stork and sugar until pale and fluffy…I like using a food mixer because i’m lazy!
• Gradually beat in the eggs one at a time but always add a spoonful of sieved self-raising from your above quota to prevent it from curdling.
• Sieve in the rest of the flour and fold it through.
• As soon as it is all combined distribute the mixture in to your prepared tin and level the tops with a wet spoon.
• Place in the oven for 40mins or until they are golden brown and spring back when touched…if you decide to this in 2 tins your bake time will only be around 20mins, but always insert a skewer or cocktail stick if you’re unsure whether the middle is done.

• Leave the cake to cool in the tin for about 10mins then turn out on to a wire rack to go completely cold.
• At this point score a line around the cake with a sharp bread knife and then carefully saw through the cake sideways…

• Meanwhile make your filling; combine the butter with the icing sugar in a food mixer, pouring the milk in gradually and slowly until the mixture is smooth and well combined.

• Whilst the cake cools you can create your various media-based paraphernalia and allow them to go slightly hard before putting them on the cake.
• Here’s how I made the various pieces:

• Depending on whether you want to go the full way round the cake or not, make sure you measure the circumference of the cake so you’re not left short.

• Now it’s time to assemble the cake.
• Whilst your motifs and media-work dry a bit, sandwich your cake with butter icing and jam.

• Stack the cakes on top of each other and then use a palette knife and the remaining butter icing to over the whole cake smoothly, ready to stick the white covering on.
• Roll out your white icing in between 2 sheets of cling film…this saves the rolling pin sticking and keeps it nice and clean from any stray cake crumbs that may be in the kitchen.

• Carefully place on the cake and use the cling film to encourage a smooth coverage.

• Now you can trim your icing.  I then use the back of a spoon to go around the edge tucking in the cut off edge to make it look tidier.
• Start to add your media-paraphernalia using water and a brush…beware though, once it’s on the cake repositioning is practically impossible without ruining the white icing base…voice of experience!

• The remaining gaps can be filled with stars of various sizes.  I used red and blue stars to mix the colours up a little as there was going to end up being A LOT of black and white otherwise.
• If you can get your hands on it, Pearl Lustre is a fab buy and I use it a lot to add a sheen to certain cake embellishments.  On this cake I used it to set off the clapper board and to give something for the glitter to stick to.
• Add some random sprinkles of edible glitter and you’re done!

Once again a fun little exploration in to cake creation based on a theme.  There will be many more to come in the following couple of months so keep your eyes peeled.

Happy film watching people and Happy Birthday Steve!

Love ZoBird xxx