Teddy bear birthday bun fight

Get your paws on a teddy bear birthday cake a perfect addition to a bear-making party or teddy bear picnic birthday tea. You can always cheat with a shop bought teddy cake or if you’re feeling creative and have the time why not make your own – much cheaper and the children can help to make the sponge or decorate the cake. There are numerous recipes on the internet, some simple and others more complex, but this recipe hopefully falls somewhere in between the two. Enjoy whatever you choose to do. And here’s to birthday teddies!  You will need two different size tins, one 6 inch and the other 5 inch or as close as you can get. These will form the head and the body for the bear. You will also need a cupcake tin. You will need to double the quantities which will give you two cakes and six to eight cupcakes. 

            Ingredients: Sponge

• 175g unsalted butter, softened, plus extra for the tin
• 175g golden caster sugar
• 3 large eggs
• 50g cocoa powder
• 100g self-raising flour (or same quantity plain flour with 1 tsp baking powder)
• 1-2 tsp milk

Ingredients: Chocolate Buttercream – make same quantity of vanilla buttercream (no chocolate but add some drops of vanilla essence).

• 50g dark chocolate (or milk chocolate if you prefer)
•  85g unsalted butter, softened
• 175g icing sugar, sieved

Method

• STEP 1: Heat oven to 190C/170C fan/gas 5. Butter the tins with baking parchment.
• STEP 2: Beat 175g softened unsalted butter and 175g golden caster sugar together in a bowl until creamy and light in colour. Then add 1 large egg, still mixing.
• STEP 3: Sieve 50g cocoa powder, 100g self-raising flour and a pinch of salt into another bowl and add a third of that to your wet ingredients.
• STEP 4: Once combined, add 1 more large egg and another third of the flour mixture and work that in.
• STEP 5: Then add 1 more large egg and the remaining flour and beat until you have a smooth thick batter. If the batter is stiff, stir in a splash of milk to loosen it.
• STEP 6: Divide the mixture between the tins and smooth the top with the back of a spoon.
• STEP 7: Bake for 20-25 mins until springy to the touch. Take out of the oven and leave in the tins for 10 mins before turning out onto a wire rack to cool completely.

Once you have baked your cakes and cupcakes make up some buttercream frosting. You will need to make up the buttercream.

Tint a small amount from the batch of vanilla buttercream with pink icing colour for cheeks, and save some for the eyes.

Use the remaining vanilla buttercream to create a lighter brown colour for the tummy nose, paws and ears by adding a small amount of the chocolate buttercream. Use a sharp knife to remove a small curved portion from the larger 6-inch cake layer to make the head saving the curved cake piece you removed for later. Push the two cake layers together to form the head and body and place on a heavy-duty cake board.

Cover an area on either side of the “head” cake with pink buttercream for the cheeks and create the area for the tummy with light brown buttercream.

Use a round cutter to cut curved sections from two of the cupcakes. These will end up being placed on the head for ears. Save any scraps for use later. Use a small round cutter to gently press into the pink buttercream to mark where the cheeks will go.

Spread a thin layer of the chocolate buttercream on the exposed cake layers and a thin layer on two more of the cupcakes. Use the lighter brown buttercream for the tops of the cut cupcakes to be used for the ears and the tops of the remaining two cupcakes to be used for the legs. For these, add more buttercream to create a smooth top.

Pipe a round mound of light brown buttercream onto greaseproof paper and place in the freezer to create the snout and then put into position on the bear’s face using two chocolate buttons.

Strat piping the darker chocolate buttercream using a decorating tip for the bear’s fur. Pipe buttercream near the bear’s neck and then place the two chocolate cupcake arms in position. Use the buttercream on the bottom of the cupcakes to help secure them to the body. Attach the cupcake legs to the body using a straw or just cut away a piece to fit them to the body. For the paws add a large chocolate button in the centre and three smaller ones  underneath to create the perfect paw print. Add another on the snout and pipe small dots on the eyes with the vanilla buttercream Then tint a small amount of the remaining chocolate cream a darker brown and pipe on a smile.

Perfection ! But will you want to part with the teddy bear cake which has taken you time, effort and creativity to bake. You may not but I’m sure the birthday boy or girl and his or her guests will !

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