Watch part 2 of how to make a simple celebration cake here
Acting cookery editor Suzannah Butcher takes you through all the steps you'll need to make a beautiful 3 tier celebration cake.
Find our triple-tested celebration cake recipe in the June issue of Good Housekeeping, on newsstands 8 May 2014.
Step 1 : Lining tin
Lightly oil the base and sides of a loose bottom or springform cake tin with baking parchment. Wrap the outside of your tin in a strip of newspaper about 7 layers thick, tying securly with string. This helps protect the outside of the medium and larger cakes whilst they are in the oven.
Step 2: Slicing cake
Slice cakes once they are completely cool as they are easier to cut. Remove the baking parchment from the cake base and place your cake on a turn table. To cut the dome of your cake off, put your hand on top of the cake and, with your serrated knife level, slowly turn the cake in front of you marking where you intend to cut. Once you have made a mark all the way around the cake, slowly saw through the dome to the other side and discard the dome. You can go back over the cake top gently with your knife to level.
To cut in half, repeat the turning action, marking where you intend to cut through the middle of the cake. Saw through to the other side. Make a small incision in the side of the cake to remind you how the two halves of your cake fit back together.
Step 3: Brushing on sugar syrup
Once two cakes are cut into four layers, you can assemble the tier. If you haven't already done so, remove the baking parchment from the base.
Brush the syrup over the sponges slowly in 10 minutes intervals to allow all the syrup to be absorbed. This prolongs the cake's shelf life by a few days and makes for a delicious flavour and moist texture.
Step 4 : Spreading buttercream and jam
Choose the cake with the most evenly baked base and set it aside. When upturned, this layer will be visible as the top of your tier. To avoid putting unnecessary pressure on the cake layers and icing beneath them, prepare each layer separately, then stack. Spread buttercream right to the edge of the remaining three layers of the cut cake. Spread jam over the central part of the cakes, leaving a 2cm (3/4in) border. You can brush jam to the edge if desired but it will ooze out of the layers creating a more home-made effect.
Click the links below for more triple-tested cake recipes and baking ideas:
Watch part 2 of how to make a simple celebration cake here
10 of the best triple-tested sponge cake recipes
Make your cake look stunning with advice from Stefi Jakab
15 of the best triple-tested baking recipes
Find our triple-tested celebration cake recipe in the June issue of Good Housekeeping, on newsstands�8 May 2014.�
An experienced and highly skilled team of food writers, stylists and digital content producers, the Good Housekeeping Cookery Team is a close-knit squad of food obsessives. Cookery Editor Emma Franklin is our resident chilli obsessive and barbecue expert, who spends an inordinate amount of time on holidays poking round the local supermarkets seeking out new and exciting foods. Senior Cookery Writer Alice Shields is a former pastry chef and baking fanatic who loves making bread and would have peanut butter with everything if she could. Her favourite carb is pasta, and our vibrant green spaghetti is her weeknight go-to. Lover of all things savoury, Senior Cookery Writer Grace Evans can be found eating crispy corn and nocellara olives at every opportunity, and will take the cheeseboard over dessert any time (though she cannot resist a slice of tres leches cake). With a wealth of professional kitchen know-how, culinary training and years of experience between them, they are all dedicated to ensuring every Good Housekeeping recipe is the best it can be, so you can trust they’ll work (and if they don’t – we’ll have the answer for why*) every time (*90% of the time the answer is: “buy an separate oven thermometer”!).
