Domestic Sluttery's Mums take over! Mum Siany's woodland cake

This is the last of our Mother's Day posts, and I really hope you like this cake decorating 'recipe'. Truth be told, without such awesome mums, Domestic Sluttery might not exist. They're the real Domestic Sluts, and they're all fabulous. We're very lucky indeed.

When I was about six, my mum suggested that me and my brother made a cake for my dad's birthday. He was out for the day (I think he was fishing, but I don't remember him catching anything) and we set about making a cake. But, because my mum is a genius, we didn't just make a dull old thing, oh no. We made a Woodland Cake!


This Woodland Cake is still one of my favourite childhood memories. I've adapted the recipe slightly, because try as I might I couldn't find a single bit of angelica. Which means Alex S and I added an awful lot more sugar flowers to our version. Hurrah! Yes, we also added a dinosaur and a giant spider. Instead of frosting sticking everything together, I'm pretty sure my mum would have used cooking chocolate (this was the 80s) but the premise is pretty much the same.

Now, you could bake the base (this cherry brownie recipe would be very tasty). And you could make your own chocolate frosting. But for me this cake is all about the decoration. It's so much fun just sticking everything together and deciding what creatures you want in your forest. The caterpillars are my favourite.


You'll need:

• A tin of flapjacks/sponge/flan base. Basically, if you're not baking your base yourself, anything large and flat that you can decorate. Don't worry if the flapjacks are already cut up, you're going to throw frosting over them which works a bit like tasty, chocolatey glue.
  
• A chocolate Swiss roll. The cheap kind with fake cream in the middle.
• Chocolate butter cream. Yes, you can make this. OR! Cheat and buy the Betty Crocker version. We don't often suggest you do that, but all you want to do is decorate!
• Lots of Flakes. Five or six should do it.
  
• White chocolate mice.
• Icing flowers.
• Coconut mushrooms.
• Jelly sweets. Any you like. That's why we've got a giant spider and a dinosaur. It's your forest, put what you like in it.
• Angelica if you can find it. It'll make really excellent grass.

Make it!

• Lay the base onto something flat. Then slather is with frosting. Eat lots of frosting. Yummy.
• Cut off a piece of the Swiss roll. Stick this to one side of your base, cream side down.
• Then position the other part of the roll on its side (you might need more frosting) and lay by the 'tree stump'. Look! A falling log!
• Well, not yet it's not, but now you slather both pieces of cake with more frosting (hi diabetes!). Chop up pieces of the Flake, and stick on the side of the Swiss roll. Look! Now it looks like trees!
• OK, now the fun bit. Grab your sweets, and basically go nuts. Put flowers where you like, mice on the stumps, spiders climbing behind the logs. Anywhere you like. it's your cake, do what you want.
• Stand back, admire your handywork, and sit there and enjoy your sugar high. This cake is best enjoyed by eating the rest of the frosting, while looking at how pretty it is. My mother is a genius - this kept me busy for hours.