Using an offset palette knife, spread the chocolate buttercream onto the base sponge around its top edge, up to 4cm in from each side.

To make the chocolate buttercream, beat the butter in a large bowl with an electric hand whisk or in a stand mixer. Pour in the icing sugar and cocoa powder and mix slowly on the lowest setting on your mixer until completely incorporated. Add a tablespoon of milk at a time to the mixture if you need to soften the buttercream. If you decorate the card with TV characters, please make sure that you only use CBeebies characters! Put the butter, sugar and vanilla paste into a bowl and beat with an electric hand whisk until light and creamy. Thoroughly beat in the egg To make the buttercream, beat the butter in a large bowl with an electric hand whisk or in a stand mixer. Pour in the icing sugar, add the vanilla paste and mix slowly on the lowest setting on your mixer until completely incorporated.Make two cakes in the loaf tin as per the instructions above but bake for 35 minutes at 180oC / 160oC fan / gas mark 4. Colour some of the white icing with the claret gel colouring, before cutting out a mouth shape with a sharp knife. Place this in position under the eyes. Cut two triangle shapes from the white icing and add these to the bottom of the mouth to form the teeth. You can ‘glue’ them into place with a little water. Using a small amount of blue gel food colouring, colour 1kg of fondant to cover the cake. Roll this out to a circle of about 40cm diameter and use your rolling pin to carefully lift this onto the cake. Use a cake smoother (or your hands) to smooth the fondant onto and all around the cake. Cut the excess fondant from the base of the cake with a sharp knife. Cream together the butter and sugar in a large bowl using a wooden spoon until light, fluffy and pale in colour. In a separate bowl, whisk together the eggs and vanilla extract with a fork until smooth.

I wrapped coat hanger wire in fondant for the antenna – if you do this keep an eye on your kids (or grown-ups) to make sure they don’t try and bite into this! I usually avoid using any non edible materials in cakes but here it was unavoidable. Remove the top layer and spread a small amount of the buttercream onto the base layer, ensuring you fill all the way to the edges. Place a small amount of buttercream in a piping bag and pipe a strip around the edge of the base cake to act as a dam. Fill the inside of the dam with a small amount of jam, if using, and spread it out evenly. Replace the top sponge, then cover the entire cake with a thin layer of buttercream to seal in all of the crumbs. With the base cake and the submarine covered in fondant now is your time to get creative with fondant decorations! Warning: this is a big cake! It’s made of four separate chocolate sponge cakes. Make each sponge cake one at a time with 4 large eggs, 225g unsalted butter, 225g caster sugar, 175g plain flour, 50g cocoa powder and 2½ tsp baking powder. You might want to make the sponges over a few days, in which case wrap them well in cling film to prevent them from drying out. Divide the mixture between the two prepared tins and bake for 30 minutes, or until golden brown and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.Take the first layer of cake and put onto your cake board. Spread a thin layer of buttercream onto the bottom cake and smooth with an offset spatula. Add a thin layer of jam (around 2tsps smoothed out) on top of the buttercream. Spread a thin layer of buttercream onto the bottom of the next cake layer and lay the next sponge on top of the cake. Please make sure that there are no brands, logos or anything identifiable on the child's clothes, such as a school jumper. Sandwich the two layers together with buttercream and add a light crumb coat of buttercream around both cakes. Heat the oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4. Grease and line three 20cm sandwich tins. Beat the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy, then briefly beat in the vanilla. Slowly add the egg, beating between each addition. Fold in the buttermilk, then sift and fold in the flour in three amounts. Fold in the milk. Divide the batter equally between the sandwich tins.

Use a serrated knife to slice any doming from the tops of the sponges. Invert one of the cakes and place it upside-down on top of the other. Cut the cake into the shape of Love Monster’s body (look at the recipe image for reference). Keep all the carved pieces of cake, as you will use them for the arms and ears. Soften the square edges with a serrated knife, trimming around the top of the cake. To make the buttercream, beat the butter with an electric whisk or table-top mixer until soft. Sieve in the icing sugar, then beat for 10 minutes until pale and fluffy. Add the vanilla, orange extract (if using) and milk, and beat briefly to combine.Repeat until it is a four layer sponge cake (sponge, buttercream, jam, buttercream, sponge, etc.). Coat the entire cake in a thin layer of buttercream and smooth with an offset palette knife.

This cake is made from two large sponges cut into two layers each, so there are four layers inside the cake. Make each sponge cake one at a time with 4 large eggs, 225g unsalted butter, 225g caster sugar, 225g plain flour, 2½ tsp baking powder and the zest of 2 lemons (plus the juice of 1) in each cake. You might want to make the sponges in advance, in which case wrap them well in cling film to prevent them drying out. Add the lemon zest and juice, sift in the rest of the flour and baking powder and fold them in. Be gentle but make sure the mixture is fully combined, including any flour at the bottom of the bowl. Put this into the cake tin, smooth the batter out with an offset palette knife and bake for 45-50 minutes. Sift in the rest of the flour and baking powder and fold them in. Be gentle but make sure the mixture is fully combined, including any flour at the bottom of the bowl. Put this into the cake tin, smooth the batter out with an offset palette knife and bake for 45-50 minutes. Fill the hollow with the coloured sweets. With my version, I separated out all of the yellow sweets to put these at the top to look more like treasure. Put gold coins on top of these. The submarine is made from two pieces of cake. I searched online for ‘Octonauts Gup-A’ and there were loads of images to guide the shape. The bottom cake should be carved carefully with a serrated bread knife into a teardrop shape with a slight curve on the underside. The top cake should be carved into a triangular shape with a slight curve to the top.Preheat the oven to 180degrees C / 160degrees Cfan / gas mark 4. Take your rectangular baking tin, line with baking parchment and grease well. This is a really good template for any sort of character cake. Once you have an iced base, you can decorate with any kind of design you like – just do a Google image search for your favourite characters. Using a small amount of green gel food colouring, colour 1kg of fondant to cover the cake. Roll this out to a circle of about 40cm diameter and use your rolling pin to carefully lift this onto the cake. Use a cake smoother (or your hands) to smooth the fondant onto and all around the cake. Cut the excess fondant from the base of the cake with a sharp knife.