Sprinkle Fault Line Cake

Two Saturdays ago (2nd Nov.) I went to Cake International in Birmingham - it was amazing to see all the different cakes there and all the designs. They were all INCREDIBLE and I would love to go again! I saw a cake there that I have seen a lot of recently - it's called a sprinkle fault line cake. It's basically where you cover a cake in buttercream, but with a gap in the middle that you put sprinkles in. It's MEANT to look like a fault line filled with sprinkles, and if you get it right, it looks amazing. The decorating part is actually surprisingly hard - I prefer working with fondant icing instead of buttercream, so this cake was a bit of a challenge for me.

I got the instructions from here, but not the actual cake and buttercream recipe. I just used it to help me decorate the whole cake and understand how it worked.
The first thing I did was make my cake - it's a very simple recipe that I always use:

Grease and line the bottom of 2x 18cm diameter tins. Then whisk together 175g self-raising flour, 1 1/2 tsp baking powder, 175g softened unsalted butter, 175g caster sugar and 3 eggs into a bowl. Split the mix into the 2 tins and bake at 180° C (fan oven 170°C). Take them out of their tins straight away and put them onto a wire cooling rack. Done!! (I also added in some blue food colouring... keep adding drops until you get the colour you want.)
I made four cakes for this, so while the first two were in the oven I made another batch of cake mix and baked another two cakes.

Make sure that both the cakes are completely cool before you start assembling. I made 4 batches of buttercream for this... and even then it was only just enough! The buttercream recipe I always use is 75g unsalted butter, 175g icing sugar, and a bit of milk, so I just made four mixes. I added in blue food colouring to this too... again, keep adding drops until you get the perfect colour.
I started off by sandwiching all four cakes together, and then I chilled it in the fridge while I cleared up the *cough* little mess I'd made. I got it out, and crumb-coated it. This is when you cover a cake with a thin layer of icing that traps all of the crumbs in, so that the final layer of icing isn't all crummy (is that even a word?!). After I crumb coated it, I chilled it for half an hour in the fridge, just to set the icing a bit.

The next bit is the hard bit... trying to replicate the fault line crack around the sides of the cake. I first stuck the sprinkles on - smear some icing around the middle of the cake, and then just... well.... stick the sprinkles on?? 😂 There isn't really a technique to it, but it's easier than it sounds, I promise...

Next, fill a piping bag with some of the buttercream. It doesn't matter what nozzle you use, if any, because the icing needs to be smoothed out on the cake anyway. Pipe all around the bottom of the cake, up to where you want the bottom edge of the fault line to be. Smooth it out with the scraper, and then do the same thing but all around the top. It should HOPEFULLY look a bit like mine... but not done yet.
Chill it in the fridge again for about half an hour. If you want to, you can make some gold food paint to go on the edges of the fault line (look at the picture!!), but you don't have to. I just mix some gold lustre dust with a drop or two of water, then paint it on with a food-safe paintbrush.
If you have enough buttercream left, then you can pipe some swirly star thingys on the top of the cake. Fit a piping bag with a medium star nozzle, and then pipe swirls on the top of the cake at regular intervals. Scatter some more sprinkles on top of the swirls, and you're done!!

This cake takes a really long time, but it is definitely worth the time when you finish. It looks so professional, but you don't need to be amazing at baking to make this - you just need a lot of patience and a steady hand.
If I made this cake again I think I would add some kind of flavour to the sponge, because I forgot to put jam in between the layers, and the sponge was just plain vanilla. Overall, though, it was amazing and definitely worth all the effort!

(By the way, this cake isn't part of my Junior Bake Off Challenge, and if you've got no idea what I'm talking about, then look at my other blog post about my challenge!)