Curry cake

It's only when you say out loud that yes, you did spend 2 hours hand shaping fondant into individual rice grains and spend another hour sticking them to the cake, that you realise you sound clinically insane. That or incredibly dedicated to birthday cakes.

I had a creative vision and was stubbornly determined not to compromise on it. . . which meant I was up till 2am on a Friday almost falling asleep whilst making fondant rice.

I discovered the following morning I had made far too much rice. But let's just ignore that I unnecessarily wasted an hour of my life on that.

The cake itself was a standard Victoria sponge although for the "curry" topping I used a rice Krispie marshmallow traybake mix, using a Nigella recipe found online. Needless to say it was hellish sticky to work with, but it saved me from baking more sponges and it created a pleasing, lumpy appearance.

The "chicken" pieces were also mini cakes made from scraps left over from levelling the sponges mixed with the left over butter icing, then covered with fondant. Nothing wasted here!