What can I use to sandwich "birthday cake" together?

[geordieminx]

Trial run for ds's birthday cake last week.

Victoria sponge, sandwiched together with jam and buttercream, then covered in royal?(ready-roll) icing.

It was sickeningly sweet. It made my teeth hurt just looking at it.

Any suggestions for an alternative? Please. Thank you.

Really needs to be iced as having characters made out of sugarpaste on top

If you are putting that ready roll stuff on top for characters etc, then jam should be ok.

I would not worry tho, small children (mostly - MN proviso) do not ever announce that things are 'sickenly sweet- UGH'

no glitter

But I do have indoor sparkler things somewhere.... ds likes them.

God why am I stressing so much about this? Its a bastard cake. Ds is getting a scooter and a toy lawn mower, interest in cake will be severely limited.

I vote for the buttercream with vanilla essence. It's how I always do my cakes. And they taste delicious.

Ignore Su. She is just lazy

Ok, how about instead of buttercream doing half cream cheese (like philly), half butter and some icing sugar, still sweet but less so and would be really nice with strawberries/ strawberry jam.

Alternatively for dd 2nd I did a carrot cake which is just as solid with the cream cheese icing and was quite good but then I quite like that kind of thing..............

Do I cover in royal icing or abandon that idea?

Abandon. That stuff is vile.

It is vile, it spoils many a delicious cake IMO (but DD2 loves it!)

Just make the characters with it.

I would use royal icing for the figures, fill with jam or curd and use a little bit of butter cream to edge the top and fill with green water icing that way the cake can be frozen if not eaten, but I have been known to make an undecorated cake to eat and ice a box to put the candles on

Oh yes Su's choc cake QUITE the star of DS's birthday
And icing amazing.
Will put pic on profile.

And this was roughly how i made the icing here
HTH

thanks everyone.

Def not icing it. Probably go with fresh cream and strawberries with beasties on top.