Please can someone help a complete novice make an excellent sponge cake?

[LadyOfRoffle]

I had been making a fruit cake for DSs Baptism (this Sunday!) but the recipe was for a Christmas cake, I put too much brandy in and the whole thing is just awful. I don't even like fruit cake! SO, I think I have time to do a sponge (is a week ok?) but I am totally and utterly clueless. I have an open book shaped tin to make it in (and also a 'flower' shaped one as a spare) which makes it even harder as I am not sure how/if you can get the filling in. Can anyone recommend a recipe? Any tips on baking a sponge that is an 'odd' shape? How do I ice it? What goes between the cake and icing? Is ready made icing ok? I have never made icing, well I have but it turned out very liquidy and cracked everywhere (on buns). Timing wise how do I do everything? How do I store it? Thankyou so so so soooo much if you can help, I don't want to buy one because I think the least I can do for DS is make him a bloomin' sponge!

Well, apparently what I am waffling on about isn't even a sponge... it's madeira (I think). I just call anything sponge coloured a sponge! SO same Qs but for a yellow coloured sponge/madeira cake - whatever you normally have for these celebration cakes!

right

you do indeed want to make a Madeira cake - a Victoria sponge is too fragile to stand up to funny shaped tins and lots of icing.

You don;t use filling in cakes baked in funny-shaped tins, it'll just have to be plain sponge. You could flavour it with orange zest or something.

Use ready-to-roll icing, spreading the cake with either warmed seived jam or buttercream to get it to stick.
I think with the book-shaped tin your best bet might just be to cut a sheet of ready-to-roll and place it on top like the pages of the book rather than trying to cover the whole thing.

Brush the inside of the tin with melted butter and dust it with flour (ie pour a bit of flour in, jiggle it around so it sticks to the butter, then pour the excess out).

Look, this sounds like it;s going to put you under a huge amount of pressure, esp as you're a novice, and I can bet DS won;t be properly grateful .

Have you thought about just buying one? You can get a simple round white one and decorate with white flowers (real or silk) or charms or a card from a Christian bookshop.

It's ok, I am good to go, looking at it it seems easier than the fruit cake I attempted! Definatly want to use ready to use icing, but wasn't sure what went under. Can you buy buttercream or do you make it? (OK about making it but am not sure!) Do I not line the tin with greaseproof like the fruit cake? It doesn't seem non stick, so it butter and flour enough to make it slip out easy? I did think about buying one, but it feels abit of a cop out, especially for a simple madeira cake! It can't be a whole lot different from making buns and I used to be good at that...

If I do the jam thing what is warm seived jam? Literally heated up jam, seived?

I think I have the decoration sorted now, spent a good hour or so googling images - plain white icing, score the pages along the sides, wide pale blue ribbon like a bookmark, a silver cross on one wide in an oval shape (that will be made from white sugar balls or similar - cannot do piping icing!) and a matching oval on the other 'page' with the wording. Possibly some fresh flowers on the top left corner too, but i'll have to play around with that and see. Well... what I have doodled out looks ok!

When do I make/ice it? I don't want it to be stale or anything

jam: warming it makes it runnier, and you want it smooth, so either seive normal stuff or (expensive) buy the squeezy no-bits stuff

tin: I'd have thought the book-shaped tin is too fiddly to line without losing all the detail. If you can lay your hands on cake-release spray this will REALLY help.

NB have you ever used ready-to-roll icign before?
it is Not Easy
maybe practise on a square cake or even a box before trying on the shaped cake.

I'll practise on my fruit cake! I will look for that spray, thanks .