Bertie Bassett Liquorice Allsorts Cake

 

 

This Bertie Bassett Liquorice Allsorts cake was made for my boyfriend's dad's birthday last summer. I asked his family what his favourite candy bar or sweet was, thinking it would be a good basis for a cake. They told me he doesn't really eat sweets but does like liquorice allsorts - unfortunately, a lot of people don't like the taste of liquorice! I decided instead to decorate the cake with liquorice allsorts and to make a model of the Bertie Bassett character that is used to advertise Bassetts Liquorice Allsorts.

 

 

I baked a simple chocolate cake in a large square tin - as it was quite a few months ago I can't remember the recipe, but you can make any flavour cake that you like. If you are brave you could even flavour the cake with liquorice!

 

 I sandwiched two layers of cake together with chocolate buttercream and placed it on a cake board.

 

Carefully cover the cake with fondant (white roll-out icing)

 



 

To make Bertie Bassett I used Renshaw ready-to-roll icing; this multi-pack had most of the colours I needed and I also had a separate pack of pink icing.

 I used the picture on the box of liquorice allsorts as a guide. First  made the feet and hat, which was the most time consuming part, as this particular sweet is made up of what looks like tiny little sprinkles. I made a flattened ball for the base and then lots of tiny balls which I rolled between my fingers, mainly blue but some white (if you look at the picture there is a mixture of both). I then used a little water to stick them all over the base.

Next I made a square of white for the body with a thin layer of black and yellow on the bottom; a pink ball for the head, then made eyes, nose and mouth; two thick yellow cylinders for the trousers and thinner black cylinders for the legs and arms, and finally some pink hands. It was pretty easy to assemble though I made Bertie sitting down so he could sit on the cake and also to give him more stability as I'm not sure his legs could have held him up!

I sat Bertie on the cake and then placed a few liquorice allsorts sweets in the corners for decoration.

Here you can see the finished cake. I was really pleased with the way it looked, and it tasted good too!

 

I'm sending this to Alphabakes, the blog challenge I co-host with Ros of The More Than Occasional Baker, as the letter she has chosen this month is L.