Show us your cakes and win a signed copy of Delia's new book

[CatherineHMumsnet]

As part of Food Feb - a month-long celebration of food on Mumsnet - we want you to show us the cakes you've made and decorated for your family. It could be a first birthday special, or a wedding cake for your sibling - whatever it is, we'd like to see it.

The three best cakes submitted will each win a copy of Delia Smith's new book, Delia's Cakes. Even better, we'll have the cooking goddess herself coming in for a webchat on 28 February, when she'll announce the three winners and personally sign a copy of her new book for them.

What we'd really love is that when you post your picture you include any tips on how you made it and give specifics on decorating styles, tools or tricks that you used, so that others can emulate your cake-decorating prowess.

To enter, simply upload your image as a post on this thread, using the image upload tool. See our image-uploading tips in the topic note above.

We'll shortly be showcasing this comp on our Facebook page too. (We'll post up the link when it's live.) Winners will be chosen from all the cake pics uploaded to this Talk thread and to Facebook.

The competition closes on 20 February, at which point we'll convene an MNHQ panel to judge the entries and decide on three winners. For additional terms and conditions go to our T&Cs page

If you're one of them, we'll contact you on Wednesday 27 February to ask whether you'd like Delia to inscribe the book with your Mumsnet or RL name.

My last tip would be to take inspiration from the internet. Pinterest is very useful as is YouTube. There are loads of really good tutorials from professionals on there. Also, invest in a few good tools if you can. A silicone rolling pin is very useful and you can pick up modelling tools fairly easily from places like TKMax.

Aaargh - decisions, decisions - which cake to enter - too hard!!

OK, Here goes - I have a whole flickr set of cakes here, most of which would qualify, but I think I will enter the cake I did for my father's last birthday (pictured above).

Please note no actual asparagus was harmed in the making of this cake (although some did get quite sticky whilst being used as a colour model ). The cake inside (I will post a photo of it cut) is "inmates chocolate cake" from the Green & Blacks recipe book, because, after a significant amount of eating cake experimentation, it is the best cake I have found with a dense enough texture to support icing without collapsing, whilst remaining moist and actually tasting nice. I cut some extra layers in and used Hummingbird vanilla frosting to sandwich it and cover the cake.

I had better confess upfront that this cake was inspired by a tutorial I stumbled across online, but since my father's birthday is at the end of the asparagus season (we live in an area with lots of asparagus growers) it tends to feature in his birthday lunches, and I couldn't resist. Making the cake is remarkably simple - just soul-detroyingly repetitive and time consuming. I rolled spears of asparagus from fondant (with sugarcel added to make it a little less brittle) coloured a variety of shades of green, and then textured them with a pair of scissors - snipping the ends, and some 'leaves' into the stalks. Once they have dried a bit, I then dusted them with purple and green petal dust to give the right colouring, with red highlights here and there (study some real asparagus - you would be surprised).

And repeat. Ad inifinitum. You need 100's of tips of spears for the centre, and enough to go all the way around the outside with no gaps. You need more than you could possibly imagine and your clothes/house/pets/DC/entire existence will be covered in petal dust before you are done.

The elastic band is an extruded strip of red gumpaste.

The pain fades, as with childbirth, when you get to see the end result. This is true of most of the really pleasing cake results I have had except R2D2 from which the scars remain to this day

As threatened promised, a photo of the cake once cut

That asparagus cake is insane stealth (in a good way)! I've never seen anything like it, absolutely amazing. People must have been speechless when they saw it.

Tailtwister - most people assumed it was real asparagus and were all about the combination of asparagus and cake (which does, admittedly, sound revolting).

How many are we allowed?!

My cake-baking obsession started with my DS's fifth birthday, and each year I plan for both DC's birthdays for weeks. DS's 8th is coming up in nine weeks...

My most recent was FIL's 80th birthday in January. I used Nigella's old fashioned chocolate cake recipe from her website, then decorated using both buttercream and fondant icing, and the kids helped me with the 'ladybirds' and 'flowers'.

My tip would be to trawl through internet images with a 'theme' in mind, not just cakes, but cartoons too, then sketch your own design, but don't be afraid to change it if necessary throughout the decorating wine-drinking process.

The entries so far are amazing though! I shall just bow out gracefully now...

I made this cake for my oldest daugther's 6th Birthday, I coloured my sponge mix with gel colours to get the rainbow effect and baked it in two square tins, I then carved the cake in the shape of a horses head based on a picture of a cartoon horse I had seen on the internet. Then I covered it in marzipan, then white fondant, I sprinkled liberally with edible glitter. I coloured white fondant in rainbow colours again and rolled them out next to one another, cut them into to strips and wrapped them around the handle of a wooden spoon to make the curly mane.

This is after we'd cut it.

This is how I got the rainbow effect

Covered in marzipan after i'd carved it.

This (I hope) is my DDs 10th birthday cake - it's a coral reef theme to go with her Sealife Centre Birthday party & its all made of chocolate with edible glitters and paints :)

Are we only allowed one entry ??

OOooo, it worked

Can I enter this on behalf of my 10yr old DD - these are Christmas Cakes that she designed, made & decorated as Xmas gifts for her teachers...

I'm going to be cheeky and add another anyway, please delete if its 1 entry pp

This is my MILs 75th birthday cake, she loves all things green & woolly with needles, this is what I came up with for her - my own recipe with is a rich dark gingery fruit cake, with nuts & exotic fruits soaked in spiced rum & decorated with royal icing...

The asparagus is brilliant!

I lost the will to live putting row after row of scales on a huge mermaid, but that is far far worse better

This is a cake that I made for my mum. The drapes are really easy to do - just stick a big blob of sugarpaste on the cake, put a hole in the top for the flowers and leave to dry. Then just roll out a sheet of icing, put folds in it and wrap around the 'blob' on the cake and let it drape down. It looks great and you don't have to worry about being particularly neat or precise. The flowers are all made from sugar too and wired together to make sprays.

Such amazing cakes on here....

This is not one of my most precise cakes ever - but one of the most loved!

For DS's 3rd birthday: a digger cake! The joy of this was that it was supposed to look muddy like a construction site. I bought a set of small wooden diggers from Amazon and used mashed-up Oreos, Crunchies, nuts and chocolate-covered raisins for different building effects. One corner of the cake was shaved away so that the big digger could be working on it. The inside was two double layers of rich chocolate cake, with tons of chocolate icing as you can see. I covered a cake board with construction tape that I found in a Costco.

In the event, the cake was pretty much eaten by 8 three-year old boys using the diggers to feed themselves. It wasn't pretty, but huge fun! I think it would be pretty easy to recreate as no v complicated techniques involved, and I can't imagine anything more heavenly for digger-loving little boys!

Mummytowillow - when you add a message you'll see a box below with a button saying choose file - use that to find your picture, add it to your message and then post the whole thing.

My daughter asked for a Toy story cake with Mr bump for her 4th Birthday and here it is. I bought the toy story figures, but I made Mr Bump out of fondant. I cut templates out of cereal boxes and made the head board out of gingerbread

I started making cakes for friends and family nearly two years ago and caught the cake decorating bug. I was lucky enough to get an airbrush for Christmas and this is my very first go with it on a cake!! This cake is for my very good friend.

This is my official entry into the competition, as this one was for my niece Emma on her 18th.

This was made for my son who loves magic, I piped it all and was quiet please with myself as I only just started getting it to cake decorating and it was one of my first/