First Birthday Cake - Advice on Icing and all things related .. Please!

[PoppyCoc]

I am going to attempt to make dd's first birthday cake using this recipe.

This will be the first cake I have ever made.
I have no idea about icing or decorations. Please can someone educate me?

looks lovely!
For a sponge cake, get some seedless raspberry jam and heat it til it is warm, so it will spread thinly over the top. Then roll out some ready to use icing (available in supermarkets) like this
Use icing sugar if it gets too sticky while you are rolling.
Then you could either get some icing pens (supercook) do some) and 'write/draw a desing on, or stick sugar shapes on, or chocolate letters (use jam to stick on) or whatever you like!
If you are creative, the ready to use icing is avaialble in loads of colours and you can make anything you like, or just roll out and cut into shapes with cookie cutters (flowers?)

Or, you can just make a load of butter icing (icing sugar mixed with butter, a few drops of food colouring) and spread on top. Then stick sweets on (smarties, choc drops etc)

I would use butter icing to ice it, make propper butter icing, with nice creamy butter. You can flavour it with chocolate or leave it plain. Then go for it with smarties, or choc buttons all over the top! It will look lovely ,you can also buy packs of decorations in sainsburys or tesco which have sprinkles, sugar flowers and sugar sparkles, that are in a theme of colour, ie pink or mauve. You could use those to decorate on top.
If you do use buttercream, here's a tip, put it on with a nice spatula or pallete knife. Do a thin layer, then put in fridge for a couple of hours to firm up, then put top layer on, that way you wont get lots of crumbs in your icing! Oh and if its too traumatic trying to get it smooth, do it swirly, or use a fork to do a pattern!
Have fun

I like the idea o butter icing - sounds easy enough for me!

How much icing sugar and butter should I mix together?

Which is a creamy butter?
Oh and the recipe 'says sot set jam', what does that mean?

for a medium cake (ie, a victorua sponge, I'd use around
140g/5oz butter, softened
280g/10oz icing sugar
1-2 tbsp milk
a few drops food colouring
a drop vanilla extract if you have some.

Method

1. Beat the butter in a large bowl until soft. Add half the icing sugar and beat until smooth.
2. Then add the remaining icing sugar with one tablespoon of the milk.
3. Beat until creamy then add the food colouring and mix well.
4. Add extra icing sugar to thicken or a little extra milk to make more runny if necessary.

Poppy, any old butter will do....honestly. Will still taste lovely. Make sure it is not straight out of the fridge though, or you will never be able to stire it

Thats brilliant, thank you

hope it goes well...

yes any will do. My butter of choice though is unsalted english creamy butter, from sainsburys !! At the moment, Im using lidl unsalted though, much cheaper! Unsalted is better for buttercream

Thats handy Geraldine, I'm just about to do an oline sainsburys shop!

I'll let you both know how it goes

(or invest in some of these
if you are going to get the cake-baking bug...

LL - glad to hear the cake is nice, hopefully I wont mess it up!
Good idea about a test one, dd isnt 1 till the beginning of November so I have time. Best to give it a practice run so I can scoff it test it

I've been scouring sainsburys website trying to find bloody soft set jam, glad to hear it doesnt matter!

Thanks for all the tips and advice, its really helpfull

yes let us know! Good luck, bet it will be gorgeous, can i come to the party?

All welcome, I'll save you some cake