Has anyone ever made a pizza cake?

[Blatherskite]

Ds is having his 5th birthday party at Pizza Express in a couple of weeks. They provide the food but I need to take a cake and I want to make a "pizza" cake to fit in with the theme.

I've got a large (30cm) cake tin but need to find a sponge recipe that will make a cake that large and cook all the way to the middle without being burnt at the edges, I could also do with some tips on what to make the toppings from. A lot of the recipes on line are American and the things they use aren't available over here.

Beginning to panic now so any help would be appreciated....

Yes! I made one for my brother years ago. I think I used a pie tin rather than a cake tin to make a very thin sponge base, topped with red buttercream (use the gel colours that come in pots to get a convincing 'tomato' red). I grated yellow marzipan on top for the cheese and coloured some coconut green for the herbs. I got a box from the local takeaway and served it with a pizza cutter.

I just did plain margarita but you could have loads of fun with fondant icing, making mushrooms, ham etc.

I'm not sure about quantities - I would tend to make a big quantity, an 8 or 10 oz mixture, fill the tin till it looks about right and use the left over mix for fairy cakes. Or maybe it would be worth googling for exact quantities for the size of tin you have.

Ooh, the green coloured coconut "herbs" is a genius idea Nanny!

We have a friend who works in Pizza Express who's going to get me a box and DS has a play doh Pizza making kit which has moulds for mushrooms, tomato slices and pineapple chunks etc which I will be washing thoroughly and borrowing.

His favourite pizza is pepperoni so I was going to attempt pepperoni slices. The Americans seem to use fruit roll-ups but I'm not sure you can get them over here.

[Grin] I was just about to post "go and talk to Blathers on the party thread" then realised it was you anyway!

You can get "fruit leather" at most health food shops - lots of kids like it as a snack, could be the same stuff as fruit roll up. The strawberry-apple one might make convincing pepperoni if you cut it into circles.

Nanny, I think I might love you.

We're off to the city centre today. I will look for some fruit leather. We used to have an American food shop that would have probably done some proper Roll ups but it closed down before Christmas. I loved that place but my bank account/waist didn't

MissKitty - yes it's me :) Having a minor panic about how I actually make this thing!!

I couldn't find fruit leather today but I've found something close. Going to open it tomorrow and have a play

Bumping in the hope of more ideas