Dad's 60th

My Dad turned 60 a few weeks ago and to mark the great occasion Mum and I created a cakey golf course in the shape of a 60. Perfect for golf-lovin' Dad.

No surprises for guessing the cake base, it's another Mary Berry plain sponge traybake. I baked two traybakes and used one for each number. Both were cut in half horizontally and sandwiched with my usual jam and butter icing before cutting to shape and covering with fondant.

The holes in the numbers were used to create a sand bunker and pond. I found it hilarious how excited people were about the "sand" in the bunker. Both adults and children were poking their fingers in it like it was magic dust, when in reality it was just mashed up Rich Tea biscuits. Haha.

As well as the sand bunker and pond we also made stripey fairway, a putting green, a cluster of trees and some rough. The trees were created by shaping fondant into cones and scoring them with a toothpick to give a leafy-ish texture. The rough was piped butter icing using a small star nozzle and I felt that extra bit of texture was the finishing touch for our golf course.

I'm really pleased with how this cake turned out. Who would have thought designing a golf course could be so much fun! My Dad was absolutely thrilled with it too and couldn't wait to share a photo of it on Facebook.

Lighting 60 candles was a mammoth task which required many helping hands. It was an impressive sight once the candles were all lit, although the amount of blue smoke in the kitchen after blowing out the candles was crazy! I'm amazed the fire alarm didn't go off.