How to Make a Knight's Castle Cake

Tint icing. Use favourite buttercream icing recipe to make 3.2kg of icing. Reserve 1.7kg white icing. Tint 600g with Royal Blue Icing Colour. Tint 240g with red colour combination indicated. Tint 480g with Kelly Green Icing Colour. Tint 60g with Brown Icing Colour. Tint 60g with yellow colour combination indicated. Set aside brown, yellow and green icings.

Spatula ice turret roofs with blue icing. Immediately cover completely with blue sugar sprinkles. Set aside.

Decorate one turret at a time. Use a decorating bag with red icing and tip 5 to cover lower half of the battlements with lines of icing; pat smooth with finger dipped in cornflour. Use a decorating bag with white icing and tip 2 to follow pattern on windows to pipe lattices. Use a decorating bag with blue icing and tip 5 to outline windows. Switch blue icing to tip 2. Pipe flags on two large towers and two medium towers. Outline and fill in flag area with blue and red icing; pat smooth with finger dipped in cornflour. Pipe red 6mm lines topped with blue dots. Pat dots smooth with a finger dipped in cornflour. Pipe random brick outlines with blue icing on all towers. Set aside with turrets resting on battlements. Reserve and store blue and white icing for later step.

Make cake. Bake and cool two 3.8cm high 23cm x 33cm cakes. Level and fill for a 7.6cm high cake. Position cake on cake board. Use palette knife to ice with white icing. Use palette knife to ice board around cake with green icing. Reserve remaining icing for later.

Assemble castle. Assemble castle according to package directions. (TIP: To make the three small turrets that will be inserted in cake more stable, attach plastic dowel rods, cut 2.5cm shorter than height of cake, to bottom of towers. Stand tower upside down; attach cut dowel rod to base with 28g melted candy. Refrigerate until firm.) Use buttercream to attach the turrets to the cake: Four large turrets to the corners (position the two turrets with flags at front corners), two medium turrets, with flags in front and two medium turrets in back. Insert the three small turrets into centre of cake.

Decorate castle. Prepare a bag with brown icing and tip 5. Pipe heavy lines on door with brown icing. Using a toothpick, mark wood grain pattern. Position door between medium turrets. Using brown icing, outline door and pipe circle door knockers. Position windows on front and sides of cake 3cm from bottom. Outline windows with a decorating bag with blue icing and tip 5. Use a decorating bag with brown icing and tip 5 to pipe scones on either side of windows. Starting at bottom with light pressure, increase pressure to create scone 2cm high. Prepare a decorating bag with yellow icing and tip 352. Pipe a ruffled leaf on top of scone for flame. Dip toothpick into orange icing colour and apply to center of flame.

Add bricks and battlements. Use a decorating bag with blue icing and tip 2, randomly pipe brick outlines on cake. For battlements, cut 34 candy discs into 1.6cm squares. Use a decorating bag filled with white icing and tip 5 to attach candy squares to top edge of cake.

Finish roof and grass. Position turret roofs. Prepare a decorating bag with green icing and tip 233. Randomly pipe tufts of grass around castle.