Tennis themed cake and cupcakes

I was asked to bake for a tennis tournament charity event to raise money for charity - half to Macmillan Cancer Support and half to a homeless charity. Initially, I thought I'd bake some brownies, biscuits and possibly a Victoria Sponge cake. However, one sleepless night, I started thinking about themed cakes and as it's for a tennis event I decided to make a tennis court cake and tennis cupcakes! Cake decorating is definitely not my strong suit but I tried my best and was pleased with the final result. It definitely needs a lot more work (especially the icing) but it did the job and raised a fair bit for charity! The tennis court cake sold for £58!! All the cupcakes were sold as well at a suggested donation of £1 per cupcake. 

I've just watched this week's episode of the Great British Bake off and I have no idea how they created their showstoppers in 4 hours as this took me longer than that and doesn't even come close to what they produced! Just as well I'm not in the show! 

Anyway back to the cakes- the tennis court cake is a vanilla sponge sandwiched with vanilla buttercream and strawberry jam. It was then covered in buttercream and placed in the fridge to set before being covered with green fondant icing. The finishing touches were made with royal icing. You will notice that the icing is terrible as I decided to use egg white powder (instead of fresh egg whites) for the icing and ended up with clumps which prevented me using a smaller tip. The tennis ball cupcakes are lemon cupcakes covered with a thin layer of buttercream followed by a circle of yellow fondant icing. Royal icing was used to pipe 2 lines to resemble a tennis ball. 

 I baked a square cake as I didn't have a rectangle tin and didn't want to 'cut and paste' 

 Spread vanilla buttercream on one half 

 and strawberry jam on the second half 

 covered in vanilla buttercream 

 finally covered with green fondant

 I made some tennis racquets using fondant icing and decided to pipe the netting later 

 

 lemon cupcakes 

 covered in yellow fondant icing 

 the finished product! If you don't look too closely - they don't look too bad :) 

For vanilla sponge

250g butter

250g caster sugar

250g self raising flour

4 eggs

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

1 teaspoon vanilla paste 

For vanilla buttercream

250g butter

500g icing sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 -2  teaspoon of milk 

Lemon Cupcakes

Makes 10 cupcakes - I tripled this recipe

110g golden caster sugar
110g self-raising flour, sifted
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
12g cornflour
110g unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 large eggs
grated zest and juice of 1 lemon

For royal icing

1 sachet egg white powder

10 teaspoons water

250g icing

1/2 teaspoon lemon juice

• Preheat oven to 180C
• To make vanilla sponge - cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time. Mix in the flour and vanilla extract and paste.
• Pour into a baking tin and bake for approximately 45-50 minutes or until risen and golden brown and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.
• Allow to cool before decorating.
• To make the lemon cupcakes - cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time. Mix in flours, zest and juice of lemon. 
• Spoon into cupcake cases and bake for approximately 15-18 minutes until golden brown and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. 
• To make the buttercream - mix all ingredients in a mixer until smooth. 
• To make the royal icing - mix egg white powder with warm water until smooth. Beat in sifted icing sugar and lemon juice. You may need to add more water or icing sugar to get the right consistency.