29 April - Street Party Royal Wedding Cake

Our street was planning a party for the Royal Wedding. My neighbour S volunteered the two of us to make a suitable cake. She had bought a set of three cake tins from a car boot sale and then I said, 'Oh, yes, three tiers, one lemon, one chocolate and the top one could be the fruit cake' 'Well,' said H, 'I can get some special wedding ribbon from a contact at the Palace. We were on. 'As the day drew closer, we both secretly worried about what on earth we were going to do but then were saved by an article in Sainsbury's' magazine by royal cake baker Fiona Cairns which gave instructions on how to make and assemble a three tier circular iced lemon cake. The only problem was that S's tins were square and of uneven sizes. No matter. I did some calculations and made two giant sponges. S used her family Simnel cake recipe for the top layer.
I bought copious amounts of fondant icing and marzipan and we visited a local specialist shop for cake boards and plastic tubes to make sure the different layers didn't all collapse down into each other.
We were all set to go. It took us nearly all day to assemble, ice and decorate the cake. We made lemon syrup and butter cream for the middle of the bottom tier and chocolate syrup and butter cream for the next tier. Then we marzipanned and iced each cake, iced the bottom board and created forget-me-nots out of some fondant icing coloured blue. As S is a landscape architect, she took charge of the final assembly, cutting and driving the plastic tubes into the cake to support the boards, as if she were sorting out some concrete foundations.
I totted up how much we had spent; just over £70. If any of our respective daughters ever get married, at least we know now how to make the cake.