My daughter Francesca’s horse crazy. I mean totally and utterly obsessed crazy. Horses truly are the only thing in her five year old world that rocks. So with her Big 5th Birthday approaching recently I felt a good deal of self-imposed pressure to come up with the necessary goods in the form of the requested Horse Cake. Ouch. I’ve put it off for several years, but this year we were having a special birthday party with all her cousins, many of which she hadn’t seen for way too long.
So after many a fretful (and sleepless!) night of research with Ms Pinterest and Mr Google I finally came up with what looked like a reasonably simple template for a horse cake. Considerably more straightforward than most, which with my lack of finess on the cake baking and icing front was a bit of a necessity. Basically one square cake plus one round cake, a few precise cuts and joins and a slathering in a slick of choccie icing. Fab template, but I only followed the layout for the horse and used my own initiative for the actual cake and decorations. Actually I used a couple of foolproof Naughty Nigella recipes for the cakes and icing. And I really should point out that this is most definitely not a healthy cake by any stretch of the wishful imaginatio, but 5th Birthdays with all your cousins don’t happen too often around here. Nor do Horsey Cakes.
I’m not actually posting the recipes for you, as both were unwavered from their original Nigella form but you can find them listed below. After considerable choccie birthday cake experimentation over the last year I can honestly say that this combination of cake and icing recipe so works. A truly divine choccie cake. And one that appeals to littlies and oldies alike, which is a tricky balance to achieve.
Not only has it been Francesca’s Big 5th Birthday but it’s also the 3rd birthday of We Should Cocoa this month, a most heavenly event hosted by Choclette of the Chocolate Log Blog. I’m ashamed to say I’ve not entered nearly enough times in the couple of years I’ve been blogging, but shall make a more concerted effort to do so in it’s 4th year! And as this month’s birthday theme is Chocolate Showstoppers I thought I’d enter my horse, though I fear it’s probably only showstopping if you happen to be five and really like horses!.
To Make A Horsey Cake you will need…….
This fab pattern from Parenting.com
Loads of Cakes: The cake recipe I used can be found here: Nigella’s Chocolate Fudge Cake. To make 2 x 20cm square cakes and 2 x 20cm round cake I timesed the recipes by 2.5 which allowed for particularly deep and substantial cakes.
A Slathering of Icing: The icing was Nigella’s Old Fashioned Chocolate Cake recipe. Double quantity was a generous amount to sandwich both cakes, stick the body parts together and slather the whole head in a generous slick of chocolate.
Decorations: 50cm of pink ribbon, orange or mint matchmakers for the mane, white chocolate buttons, minstrels, piped icing for the eyelashes, a small piece of white fondant icing for the eye.