Monday 24 January 2011

A medieval birthday banquet (and how to build a castle cake)


On the off-chance that anyone might be planning a medieval style party and be in need of some instructions for building a castle cake, I thought I'd share how I made James' cake. You will need a couple of hours to spare though, and the cute helper is optional!


Firstly, I made a double batch of Victoria Sponge. Ideally you should make the cake the day before icing it, because then it's not so crumbly when you spread the icing on.

Then I had to colour 3lbs of white sugarpaste icing to a small piece of black and the rest to various shades of grey.





People will ask me, 'How do you get so much baking done with four boys around?'
Answer: 'the bigger ones will either help or amuse themselves, while the youngest will sit in his own special spot right beside me.' 




Now I had to assemble the cake/castle.


Sandwich the sponges together with jam and buttercream.



Add four swiss rolls to the corners to make the turrets and cover everything in buttercream cement.



Put the black icing across the front and some grey on the roofs.




Meanwhile, if you have a little helper you may find that he has started testing the buttercream for you!



Now the time consuming part.

Make lots and lots of little balls of grey icing, flatten them a little then add the bricks. 

Add the door and ramparts too.

I also dyed a little coconut green for the grass.

And there you have it.



Oh, yes, the canon on the roof too. And some canon balls!










This was the banqueting table before the knights and Lady Guinevere sat down.



And once they had sat down.






















The sparkler was on the back of the canon.











7 comments:

  1. Oh my goodness! That looks so cool! What a great party!

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  2. What an impressive cake! Katie's birthday is next week and I am (hoping) to make a castle cake, although it's more straight forward than the medieval cake as it won't have so much detail. Well done :o)
    Looks like a great banquet :o)

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  3. @ No Place Like Home: chan e a bhios agad ri dheanamh!!;)

    Kirsteen - I am sooo impressed. It all looks fabulous. Good for you for going to all this effort ... x

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  4. I've made my share of birthday cakes, but none so awesome as that!

    Bridget in Minnesota

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  5. Wow! That is all I have to say! You make it seem so simple too! What a cake! And the banquet looked like so much fun! I loved the costumes!

    What a great idea about putting the little one right next to you while baking. He can watch his mama and will stay very entertained! So cute!

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  6. We managed to make a cake almost like yours based on these super helpful instructions! We celebrated our young knight's 5th birthday and the castle cake made the party :) Thanks for this. I also enjoyed reading about your 4 boys and happy life :)

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  7. Thanks for posting this! We followed your helpful instructions and made a cake very similar to this...used rice krispie square stuff for turrets and a square cake. It made our little knight's 5th birthday very special. Thank you!!

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