Red (Velvet) Wedding Cake

The Lannisters send their regards… For the cake: Grease and line a 15cm, a 23cm and a 30cm cake tin, all around 7.5cm deep, with non-stick baking paper. Preheat the oven to 180°C (160°C fan assisted/350°F/Gas mark 4). You may need to do this in batches as it makes a large quantity and won’t all fit in one bowl at once. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy, then gradually add the eggs, together with the vanilla extract, beating between every addition. In a separate bowl, mix together the flour, cocoa powder, salt and baking powder. Fold the flour mix into the egg and sugar, then stir in the red colour and mix well.
Transfer to the prepared tins and bake for the following times: Small tier – 30-40 mins Medium tier – 65-75 mins Large tier – 75 -85 mins.
The cakes are ready when risen and firm and a knife inserted in the centres comes out clean. Allow each to cool in their tin for a few minutes, then turn out onto a rack to cool completely. Remove the paper carefully.
To make the buttercream: Beat together the softened butter and icing sugar until light and fluffy. Add the cream cheese and a few drops of vanilla extract and beat again.
Cut the cakes in half horizontally with a long-bladed serrated knife and sandwich them together again with buttercream. Stick each to a cake board with a little buttercream, then spread a layer of buttercream over the tops and sides. Chill until this sets, then spread the remaining buttercream in a thin layer over the cakes to give a flat finish.
Measure over the top and sides of each cake and roll out and cut a circle of the ready to roll icing to this diameter. Lift over the cake and smooth with your hands, trimming around the bottom edge as necessary.
Hold a dowel at the side of the largest cake and mark with a pencil where it is level with the icing – it mustn’t stick up. Cut the rod and three others to the same length. Push the rods into the cake about 5cm in from the edge of the cake, evenly spaced in a square formation. Repeat for the medium-sized cake. Stack the cakes one on top of each other.
For the arrows, we used chocolate sticks with strips of astro belts cut to look like feathers affixed with a small amount of melted chocolate. For the sword, spray a Refresher or hard candy bar silver and fix to half a Crunchie with melted chocolate, adding a boiled sweet to decorate.
The direwolf uses the cake pop recipe from ‘Nedible Starks’ earlier in the book, with half a Rolo for the snout and each ear and a chocolate icing to cover. The eyes are made from chocolate drops.
To make the roses: Keeping back a little for the figures, knead the white icing until soft. For each rose, make a small cone shape and stand it on the work surface. Roll little balls of icing and flatten into petal shapes before sticking to the cone with a little water. Build up the rose by adding petals of increasing size. Finally, twist off the surplus icing at the base.
For the figures: Colour the remaining white icing pink, by kneading in a tiny amount of colour. Make simple heads and bodies, then ‘dress’ them in scraps of brown icing. Paint on features with black colour. Make a tiny knife with icing painted black.
For the blood: Lightly beat the egg whites in a large bowl. Add the sieved icing sugar, little by little, beating well until a thick pouring consistency is achieved. Beat in the glycerine to add gloss, then add red colour until the icing looks ‘blood-like’.
When fully assembled, pour the ‘blood’ all over the cakes, as if emanating from the slashed throat of the kneeling figure. Once that’s done, sit back and wait for ‘The Rains of Castamere’ to play. Then it’s party time!