Surprise , surprise Jamie and Hannah announced their engagement on 8th October!
Congratulations and Best Wishes for your future together.
Jamie and Hannah arrived home this weekend to celebrate with the family and we all enjoyed Sunday lunch together. Jamie also fitted in a fast half marathon at Stroud, before the celebratory meal at The Old Lodge.
It was a lovely occasion with eighteen family members and four generations present, so good to get everyone together to celebrate this wonderful news.
Not being a cake maker apart from the annual Christmas Cake, I decided to ‘have a go’ at making an engagement cake as a surprise for James and Hannah’s celebratory lunch. I was interested in the ‘Topper’ style cake that is quite popular now,( which is basically a tall layered caked.) I thought one would use a stack of Victoria Sandwich cakes, but learned that the Vanilla cake is better as it is slightly heavier and will support the weight of the cake better.
I googled images and decided that I liked the semi naked version, and so my design was hatched and I set about making three large vanilla cakes which I levelled and halved. I then layered the six sections with home-made jam and buttercream. Following this I covered the outside with buttercream and white chocolate, scraping on and then off to give the semi naked looked.
The decoration was a last minute thing as I didn’t want to decorate too early but as we went to watch Jamie in the Stroud Half Marathon it was quite manic to finish in time. I was very pleased with the overall effect and liked the combination of the bunting and the flowers.
I enjoyed making the cake and would encourage anyone interested to also try something new.
