2 days before the party I made up 4 oven baking trays about 16” by 12” with Victoria sponge and then a 14” round, 9” round, 8” round, 7” round and a 1.5 pint pudding basin with chocolate sponge cake with chocolate chips. The following day I laid out the Victoria sponge for the land mass and an empty 14” cake tin as the base of the volcano. I then carved the river and the beach slope from the sponge and coated some with green lemon flavoured water icing and topped with dyed dessicated coconut for the grass and the rest with chocolate butter cream and topped with crushed double chocolate cookies for the earth.
The volcano was all the above mentioned chocolate cakes stacked with choc butter cream and raspberry jam between them (cut pudding basin level in two just to add more filling). I carved the river out and dammed it at both ends and added very runny water icing to fill the trench, then made up what my recipe book calls American frosting (egg white, water, caster sugar, all whisked over a ban marie) which makes nice firm peaks so dyed some blue and used for sea.
The volcano was firstly coated with butter icing dyed gray to form the shape over the cake tin base and multiple cake layers and formed into a well at the top. I then made up runny orange water icing and added some lumps of cinder toffee for texture and tipped it into the well at the top so it overflowed and poured down naturally, bolders round the base are cinder toffee dusted with gray food tinting powder. Final stage was the sandy beach which was very finely crushed shortcake biscuit.
This homemade volcano birthday cake was not cheap to make although many materials bought will come in use again at Christmas and others birthdays on a smaller scale. It was extremely time consuming but it made a great project while I was on a ban from heavy lifting, climbing ladders and the usual DIY stuff and as I do every year (see Haahoo cake from last year) I really enjoyed doing it. People have approached me about doing some for them (including a biker mate who wants a wedding cake!!!) but not sure it might take the fun out of it.
My little girl fell in love with it as did her cousins and all the adults enjoyed the homemade volcano birthday cake, and given the size most people got to take home a small box of cake (some came back the following day for 2nds).
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