Instagram Camera Cake

My sister loves cameras and all camera related items. I wanted to bake a cake for her birthday and a camera cake was an obvious choice! She loves digital cameras, vintage cameras and uses Instagram. I thought that a plain black digital camera cake might look a little boring so I made a cake that looks like the Instagram app! This cake was a bit of a challenge to make and I would call the end result "rustic". Let's just say that I have a new found respect for the folks on Ace Of Cakes.

The actual cake base is a vanilla sponge made using my favourite basic sponge recipe that I adapted from you guessed it, Nigella Lawson's How To Be A Domestic Goddess, but you can use any basic sponge recipe that you like for the base. Once the cake is baked and completely cooled it's time to decorate! Clear everyone out of the kitchen because things are about to get serious!

Mi has mentioned my buttercream recipe before and now it's time to share it! I was searching the internet for the perfect buttercream recipe. One that's not too sugary and also not too buttery. The recipes that I came across were varied and I wasn't quite sure what to try to get my desired result so I decided to just combine everything I read and just throw some things together!  The basic buttercream recipe is as follows:

Basic buttercream:

• 125g butter
• 2 cups sifted icing sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence
• 1 Tablespoon milk

1. Beat the butter till pale and creamy. The butter must be soft!
2. Add the icing sugar one cup at a time. Beat together.
3. Add the vanilla and milk and beat till smooth. 

The recipe can be easily adjusted for your taste. Just change the amount of sugar you use.

The Instagram cake is covered in a chai flavoured buttercream and a chocolate buttercream. I made two batches of the basic buttercream and saved 1/3 of the mixture for the chocolate component. 

Chai buttercream:

Chai spice mix:

• 1 1/2 teaspoons cardamom
• 1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ginger
• 1/4 teaspoon cloves
• 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

1. Combine all the ground spices to make the chai spice mix. I tend to make a big batch of this and store it away so I'm always ready to make chai flavoured anything!
2. Add the spice mix to the basic buttercream.

I got the chai spice mix recipe from a cute blog called "Some More Please!"

Chocolate buttercream:

• Cocoa powder

1. I can't really give an exact measurement for this. I just kept adding cocoa powder to the basic buttercream till the colour was right.

For the decorations, I rolled out some store bought marzipan and dyed it with various food colouring. 

This may sound like a lot of work but my sister loved it so it was all worth it in the end! Happy birthday! Na xo