Alice in Wonderland Mad Hatter Tea Party Unbirthday Cake

Vanilla cake

1. Preheat oven to 140oC.
2. In a mixer toss in 3 cups gluten free self-raising flour, 1 cup gluten free plain flour, 2 cups white sugar, 300g of softened butter (I often melt it before), 1 ¼ cups of milk, 6 eggs and 3 tsp of vanilla essence, and mix well.
3. Grease the doll cake pan with either butter or baking spray before filling with the cake mix.
4. Place on a baking tray for stability before placing on a bottom rack in the oven.
5. Bake for 2.5 hours until a skewer comes out clean.
6. Set aside to let cool completely (approx 1-2 hours)

Pink icing

1. Meanwhile, mix together ~600g of white rolled icing with pink colouring.
2. Start bit by bit, softening the icing with your hands, and adding a thumbprint of colouring at a time, folding it in, then twisting and squishing until it’s swirl free.
3. Finally, once all the icing is mixed, combine it all together and knead it so the colour is smooth and consistent. If your hands get sticky with the icing, dust them with some icing sugar.

Buttercream icing

1. In a mixer, beat together 250g softened butter (not melted!), 3 cups pure gluten free icing sugar and 1 tbsp of milk.

White icing

1. In a mixer, beat together 250g of melted Copha (keeps it white), 3 cups pure gluten free icing sugar and 1 tbsp of milk.

The Process

1. Once cooled slice 1cm off the tiny base so the cake can balance by itself. Don’t level off the top, as it should’ve risen higher in the middle, which will create the arched/curved cake top that the unbirthday cake is shown to have.
2. Coat the entire cake with a layer of buttercream icing, using the icing to fill in big gaps on the top of the cake.
3. Roll out enough pink icing and drape over the entire cake.
4. Use a cake smoother to remove bubbles and smooth the surface.
5. Finally, you decorate with white icing and some tiny fondant roses. Not much detail is shown for the type of piping they use, so make your own judgement on what looks good.

The Unbirthday Candle

1. To make the cartoon candle, mix a tiny amount of white rolled icing with blue, roll and cut out with a flower cookie cutter. Drape over a round edge to curve it and let it sit and dry.
2. For the candle, mix a small handful of white icing with yellow colouring and mold into a candle like shape. Don’t worry too much, this is supposed to be cartoony based afterall. To finish it off, I dusted the candle with some edible pearl powder in gold, and its flower shaped base with blue edible pearl dust.