My Purple Beauty - By Fatima Yusuf
Ingredients:
- 1 ½ cups butter
- 1 ½ cups caster sugar
- 6 eggs
- 3 cups self raising flour (sifted)
- 2 tbsp water
- ½ tsp vanilla essence
- Marzipan
- Sugar paste (sold in craft shops)
- 2 tbsp apricot jam
Method:
- Grease and line a 9 inch cake tin, with baking parchment. Set oven to preheat on gas mark 4.
- Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, following each with a tablespoon full of the flour. Fold in the remaining four, water and vanilla essence.
- Spread the cake mixture evenly into prepared tin, level the top and make sure there is plenty of mixture in the corners. Bake the oven for 50-60 minutes until well risen and springy to the touch. Invert carefully on a wire wrack and leave to cool.
- Once the cake is fully cool, coat with apricot jam. Roll Marzipan to ¼ inch thickness and cover cake. Smooth with palms of hands. Roll out sugar paste to ½ inch thickness and place on top of marzipan. Smooth with palms or a icing smoother. As an alternative, there are endless possibilities to cake decorating....It just takes imagination and a few exited taste buds!
How to make the roses:
- Roll out sugar paste icing thinly and cut pot circles with small cutter, 1-4 centimetres, depending on the size of roses required.
- Start with a small disc and fold round quite tightly to form the centre of the rose. Add more petals, curling the edges as you fold them to give a natural affect. Stick on to cake using edible glue.
