Go Jetters Truckster Celebration Cake

take your Icing skills for a spin with this celebration cake!

INGREDIENTS

For the cake:

• 520g unsalted butter (room temp)
• 520g caster sugar
• 10 eggs
• 2tsp vanilla extract
• 520g self-raising flour
• 2tsp baking powder
• 50ml milk

For the filling:

• 200g strawberry jam

For the buttercream:

• 125g unsalted butter (softened)
• 250g icing sugar, sifted
• 2tbsp milk, to loosen

For the decoration:

• 750g light blue fondant
• 200g orange fondant
• 200g dark blue fondant
• White fondant and food gel colouring, or different coloured fondants, for the Go Jetters
• Dowels, cut to size
• 25cm cake board, with two sides trimmed, to match the shape of the Truckster

mETHOD

1. Preheat the oven to fan 180’. Grease and double-line the base and sides of 2 x 23cm deep cake tins.
2. Using electric beaters or a freestanding mixer, beat together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. In a separate bowl, crack the eggs and whisk together with a fork. Slowly add the eggs to the butter and sugar mixture, with the vanilla extract.
3. Sift together the flour and baking powder, then add to the egg mixture, using a spatula to scrape down the mixture from the sides of the bowl. Then add the milk and mix until just combined. Divide the mixture between the two cake tins.
4. Bake for 45-50 minutes, until a skewer inserted into the cakes comes out clean. Allow the cakes to cool in their tins for 20 minutes before turning out onto wire racks.
5. While the cakes are cooling, make the buttercream. Whisk the butter until light (using an electric hand whisk or a freestanding mixer). Slowly add the icing sugar, loosening with milk, and whisk until light and fluffy. Add a little extra milk if necessary to make a soft and spreadable buttercream.
6. Use a serrated knife to level off the cakes, cut each cake in half (horizontally). Set half of just one of the cakes aside. Sandwich the other three cake halves together using the strawberry jam, then use your knife to remove the curved edges from two of the sides (to create a slightly oval shape).
7. Cut a semi-circle from the back of the cake stack and then flip it over onto the back of where it has just been cut from to make an elevated rear for your Truckster, using more jam to secure it. Make an indent in the sponge just in front of here to make a sunken cockpit for the Go Jetters. Use a little buttercream to fix the base of the Truckster onto your cake board then use a palette knife to smooth buttercream all over the cake. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.
8. Roll out 2/3 of your light blue fondant to a 5mm thickness and cover the cake. Smooth down the sides and trim off any excess. Carefully push the fondant down into the cockpit area.
9. Roll out the orange fondant and cut out two matching pieces to wrap around the edges and front of the Truckster to form the sides and front bumper. Roll out the dark blue and cut shapes to line the cockpit, form the headlights, front grill and raised tail lights. Add additional detail with thin stretches of orange fondant and small circles of the light blue.Use a damp paintbrush to stick pieces to the base fondant, if needed.
10. To make the fondant characters, knead different colour fondants (depending on the Go Jetters’ outfits) to form their bodies. Make different flesh colours and roll into ovals to make the Go Jetters heads, and top with the relevant helmet colours. Use edible black marker, or black writing icing, to add facial features. Fix these onto the bodies, then carefully place the Go Jetters into the Truckster cockpit.
11. Decorate the bonnet of the Truckster with layers of different sized orange, white and blue fondant stars.
12. For the wheels, cover 8-10cm plastic dowels with light blue fondant and set aside to firm up. Use round pastry cutters to cut the wheels from the remaining half of the cake that was set aside. Cover with a thin layer of buttercream, then cover each one with blue fondant. Carefully try to smooth the fondant to reduce the number of creases in the wheels. Cut a circle from the darker blue fondant (the same size as the flat front of the wheels). Then cut a smaller circle out of this, leaving you with a ring of fondant. Attach this to the flat front of the wheel. Decorate the tyres with strips of orange, to look like tread.
13. To assemble, carefully pop the Truckster-topped cake board onto a sturdy, low support – like a glass or beaker (fixing it with buttercream) to make the Truckster seem as though it is levitating. Poke the fondant-covered dowels into the tyres and then into the body of the Truckster so that the wheels look extended. Decorate with edible cake decorations.