Aipotu

So it was my birthday the other day, and the high-lite of it was making my cake. Yeah I know, normally other people make it for you, but this was too awesome to entrust to a layman. I made a TARDIS cake.

Quite possibly my geekiest moment ever, it trumps my cousin's geekgasm when David Duchovny appeared on the Twin Peaks DVD, and it beats every single time I attempted to Macgyver something. (It should be noted that none of those attempts worked, and on one memorable occasion work ended up with a shiny new Milkshake maker, when I managed to anti-macgyver the old one.)

So here is my step by step guide on how to make your very own TARDIS cake, with pictures,

First, collect your ingredients. I used three packet mixes, butter cake. Homebrand, because as a uni student I have no money. You can of course make the cake from scratch, and pick what ever flavour you want, it's going to be smothered in icing anyway.



Notice the cask of wine in the corner, this is essential, unless of course you don't drink or are underage, then I suggest you replace alcohol with a delicious beverage of your choice.



Look at their little faces, they look so shocked.



Cake I feel tastes the best when it hasn't actually been cooked. Seriously cake mixture may be why I love cooking so very much.

Pour the mixture into the largest rectangular cake dish you can find. If you don't have any super large ones, you can make three small rectangular or square ones.

This should all be done a day in advance as it's easier to ice when the cake is a little bit stale.


For the crafting of the cake I recruited four of my cousins, something this awesome deserves an audience.

First cut the top off so you have an even level, put it to the side, you'll need it later. Now divide the cake, or cakes, into large sqaures. I quartered mine. And stack, like so.



Remember the top we put away, now we need it, cut the edges off and place around the base of the stack. Don't worry if they don't line up fantastically, you can always, shape them, and fill up the gaps with icing.



Now comes the fun part; icing. I made vienna cream, fairly simple recipe. 250 grams of butter, beaten until white and creamy. Gradually add 3 cups of icing sugar and 2 tablespoon of milk, continuously beating. (Thanks Women's Weekly.)


Look at me go.
I feel there's a "beating" joke in here somewhere, but I can't quite find it.

Add blue food dye. A lot of blue food dye. You'll want it fairly dark.


Now, slather the cake in icing. Smother it.


To smooth the icing and shape it nicely, dip a bread knife in hot water. Eventually it's going to look something like this:



Funny story about the 'light' on top, (two yellow lollies stuck together with water) I told my cousins they could eat whatever lollies they wanted, except the yellow ones. My cousin Megan immediately goes and grabs a yellow one. Next thing we here is a cry of pain, she bit down on the lolly and it attached it self to her braces, out came the lolly and her back tooth brace. Moral: Don't eat the yellow ones.


To stop the cake from just looking like a blue rectangle, add licorice. Like so:


For lettering, you can either pipe it on (very difficult) or buy pre-made candy letters (very easy). Only downside, is that the letters may not be white. So if you're a purist, you'll have to take the piping option.

Whilst my minions ran down to the shops to get some delicious candy letters, I caught up on my neglected drinking. Look at my martini.



Another downside to the letters, is that they only come with two copies of most letters, I ended up putting "Happy"and "Birthday" on two sides, and "Police Box" on the other two.



For the final touch, the top two 'windows' should have white piping onto them, and the second top left panel should have a small sign onto it. The best option would be to print out a picture of the three panels, and stick it onto the cake with a little bit of water. Martinis' two and three thought it would be a good idea for me to pipe these on.

My piping mixture was too runny, and as you can see disagreed.



And finally, it's a proper birthday cake. VOILA.





My cousin Angus and I worked out that technically you can claim any cake as a TARDIS cake, albeit one with a working chameleon circuit. He was all for a piano cake, but I had veto rights.

If anyone decides to make it, I would love to see pictures. As you can see mine is slightly shoddy, but it was still delicous.

On a side note - What is everyones' favourite birthday cake? Either one that was made for you, or one that you had to make yourself, or one that you'd love to have. My uni friends bought me a cheescake tonight, decorated it with candles, and hid it from me until I walked into the room. Whilst not as awesome as my TARDIS, it was still pretty darn sweet.



An anonymouse suggested some pictures of the cake being cut up. It worked realy well actually, each slice produced four peices.



Right at the end it all toppled, with the last stack just falling over. The layers only seperated with someone pulling them apart, the icing acted like a cement.