Saturday, March 5, 2016

Cheshire Cat Cake for Melbourne Cake Club - March Madness


`But I don’t want to go among mad people,’ Alice remarked.
`Oh, you can’t help that,’ said the Cat: `we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.’
`How do you know I’m mad?’ said Alice.
`You must be,’ said the Cat, `or you wouldn’t have come here.’


Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass

Our theme for the Melbourne Cake Club meeting this month was March Madness.  I loved this theme - there are so many different directions you could take it.

I was originally going to try my hand at a Mad Hatter Cake, but then realised that time was against me.  Inspiration came when I was flicking through Fiona Cairns' Birthday Cakes for a good cake for carving.  Fiona has an Alice's Tea Party section, with a big blue Alice Teapot, and some very colourful Cheshire Cat cupcakes.  I decided to use the base lemon madeira cake that Fiona used for Alice's Teapot,  but bake it in ordinary sandwich tins in a green, pink and purple zebra colour scheme:
 

I joined and covered the cakes with raspberry buttercream (using my favourite Primrose Bakery buttercream recipe):


then covered the cake with rolled fondant to mimic Fiona Cairns' Cheshire Cat cupcake design (with teeth in royal icing):


And here's a look inside the cake (that I had to wait nervously to see):


Other cakes at our March Madness meeting, held at The Mint Bar in Melbourne, were Sue's gluten free parsley and mint cake:


which was bright green inside:


Abi made an orange and black zebra cake filled with decadent chocolate ganache in support of her AFL team, the Richmond Tigers: 


Dalya made a chocolate, chilli and orange cake covered with delicious fudge icing and decorated with homemade fondant discs: 


Our newest member, Haidee, made mango and coconut cake filled with mango custard:


Alex made a gluten free tropical cake decorated with fresh fruit:


And Noni (who brought along her gorgeous three month old baby, Heidi) made a devine gluten free Persian love cake, generously decorated with cream, fresh fruit and rose petals:


Another new member, Katrina, also came along to check out proceedings.

Here's a look at The Mint Bar décor - we were happily ensconsed in the beer garden on a very warm night:


We had a fabulous night of March Madness.


Cnr William & Latrobe Street
Melbourne VIC 3000

13 comments:

Lorraine @ Not Quite Nigella said...

Wow what a great and fun design Cakelaw. You did a great job and you can see the distinctive Cheshire Cat grin straight away :D

Johanna GGG said...

what a fantastic cake - love the cheshire cake - and I hate having to wait until a social event to see how my cakes look inside - you must have been really pleased with how yours looked

Cakelaw said...

Thanks!

Cakelaw said...

Johanna, I was so nervous in case it just looked grey inside!

Mae Travels said...

You seemed to choose a much madder madness theme than any of the others! Very creative.

best... mae at maefood.blogspot.com

Andrea_TheKitchenLioness said...

Dear Gaye, an outstsanding design for a wonderful looking cake - you must have been really happy with the way it turned out! What a fun theme for the month of March and what a fun cake club!
Ahve a lovely weekend!

Teresa said...

What a gorgeous cake you made! And the rest of the group's cakes were beautiful, too. I so enjoy your cake club posts.

Cakelaw said...

Thanks -I had fun making it.

Cakelaw said...

Thanks - you too Andrea.

Kari said...

I love all the inside colours! What a fun theme for this month.

The Caked Crusader said...

Love love love your cake - so cute!

2paw said...

A fabulously grinning cat and all the cakes look wonderful again this month. I am itching to make one of those zebra strip style cakes!!

Kayte said...

Oh my goodness that Cheshire Cat cake is adorable, inside and out! What a good choice for the theme! You are so creative and talented.