Michael Jackson Cake

 Using the recipe in my post from March for the cake and vanilla buttercream (5oz softened butter, 10oz icing sugar, 1tsp of vanilla essence for the crumb coat, half that for the final layer of icing) icing at the birthday boy's request, I made the magnificent creation to the left.

I did use paper towels/kitchen paper to smooth the buttercream down as the internet advises but my paper towel had quite a bumpy pattern AND it was the last sheet on the roll so had some creases on it so my finish was not quite perfect. Alas.

I bought black ready-made fondant icing from Tesco which tastes pretty decent. I printed the silhouette of Michael Jackson from a Google image search and put it over the rolled out icing, pricked all around it with a pin and then cut it out carefully before placing on top of the cake. I think it worked quite well and the birthday boy was pleased. My next challenge may well be making my own marshmallow fondant.

Chocolate Cake

This one is adapted from this recipe here . However, I have adapted because I am a traditionalist and feel compelled to use butter, not oil, in a cake. It's actually in the oven baking as I type so who knows if this adaptation was a success.
Update 1 - just looked in the window to the oven. With 12 minutes baking time left, one of the cakes has overspilled the tin. However, it does look quite delicious.

It has also been partly driven by necessity and availability of tools - I have no weighing scales at the moment so cups were an easier measurement.

Ingredients
2 cups sugar
100g of butter (well, actually, about 1/4 of the 454g package of butter)
2 eggs
1.5 tsp of vanilla essence
2 cups of self-raising flower
1.5 tsp of bicarbonate of soda
pinch of salt
.75 cup of cocoa
1 cup of milk
.5 cup of boiling water

Method

1. Preheat oven to 350F/180C
2. Cream together butter and sugar
3. Add eggs and mix
4. Add vanilla essence and mix
5. Add 1 cup of flour and .5 cup of milk and mix
6. Add second cup of flour with salt and bicarbonate of soda and mix
7. Add the other half cup of milk and the cocoa and mix
8. Add water until you have the desired consistency - not runny but not stiff...just about pourable
9. Put into two prepared cake tins and bake in oven for approx 35 minutes until toothpick inserted comes out clean