To celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of Dr Who, Lakeland have launched a range of Whovian kitchen paraphernalia. The Dalek Cake Mould is sturdy, and the results are stunning, if you grease the silicone well.
I’d recommend washing and drying the mould thoroughly.
Use a pastry brush to make sure that the grease gets in every feature. Regular readers of holdtheanchoviesplease.co.uk know I use Wilton’s Cake Release.
I took a basic Victoria sponge recipe and adjusted the ingredients and these measurements work perfectly for this size mould.
Ingredients
500g self-raising flour
500g unsalted butter, softened
500g caster sugar
8 medium eggs – lightly beaten
1tsp vanilla bean paste
1 pack of pre-made fondant icing – I bought a 1kg pack and had a little to spare
Small natural sponge (a make up one will work very well)
Copper liquid edible food colouring. I used Rainbow Dust Colours although this is a wholesale site – use this as a guide to choose your colours – there are plenty of online sellers if you type this brand into Google.
Silver liquid edible food colouring
Black food colouring
Edible Silk metallic silver
Method
Pre-heat your oven to 180 degrees. Adjust to 170 degrees if it’s fan-assisted.
Using a hand mixer you need to beat the sugar and butter together until it turns to a pale yellow, almost white colour.
Begin to add your eggs – slowly – if you tip them into this mixture in one go – it will curdle, giving you extra work. If you’re slow and thorough you won’t need to add tablespoons of flour to rectify your bowl of curdled mix. Now take a large silver spoon and gently fold in your flour. Don’t beat, as your aim is to combine the ingredients.
Gently tip the ingredients into the mould, which you’ll have supported on a baking tray. I lost a couple of features to air bubbles so make sure you tap down your mould a few times to release any air.
Put on the middle shelf of the oven and cook for 90 minutes. I have a fan oven, mine took 90 and I had to put some foil on the top to prevent burning. When a skewer comes out totally clean, take the cake out of the oven and leave to cool completely.
Add foil to another baking tray or stiff board, or whatever you’d like to present it on. Put the cake mould on the foil board/tray and then tip upside down. The cake, if well-greased, should easily release from the mould. If not, gently pull the sides apart, which will help.
Roll out the icing – I made two wide strips to make sure it was easy to handle as it needs to be rolled out quite thin. Not paper-thin you understand but thin enough so you can drape it over the features. Cover the Dalek in warmed apricot jam (any light-coloured fruitless jam will work) give it 20 seconds in a small bowl in the microwave. Apply your rolled icing and press down, tucking the edges underneath.
Take a small pot and pour out the main colour, a few drops at a time . Dab the cake with the colour-dipped sponger. Wait for each covering to dry and repeat. This is the result of 3 coats.
Use the gold to highlight the other areas.
I used a photo of a Dalek as reference, there are lots on Google Images, in many colours so you don’t have to replicate this one. Use black icing or paint on black colouring for the bumper features at the top and bottom of the cake. As you can see, I’ve rolled out thin sausages to act as rubber. The eye is a thin circle of black icing shaped into a doughnut.
To finish, use chocolate sticks and sugar paste to create the gunstalk, eyestalk, and plunger, or a few silver candles would do the job just as well.
looking better than Robs version on the bake off!!