Junior Bake Off Challenge 1 - My favourite school subject cake (Cake Week)

So unfortunately, after I took some pictures of the whole cake, I accidentally deleted them.... and couldn't find them anywhere on my phone 😂🤦, so I just took a picture of half the cake.

I was excited to do this - it was my first Junior Bake Off challenge and it went surprisingly well! I forgot to time myself while doing this challenge, so I don't know how long it took, but it was definitely over the time limit... oops.
I decided to flavour my sponges this time, and it actually tasted really nice, so I will do that again!

I used the same sponge recipe that I used here, except I only made one mix (two cakes) as I didn't want this cake to be so big. I also added in 1tbsp of  lemon juice, and the zest of a whole lemon instead of using vanilla extract. Once they were baked, I began to decorate them - in my opinion, the best part.

I made one batch of buttercream (the recipe is also in the same blog post mentioned above) but instead of using milk to loosen it up, I put in a dash of lemon juice. I put a blob of buttercream onto a plate, and then put the first sponge on. I always spread the buttercream on first, a bit like cream first on scones... (I am DEFINITELY cream first...)

Anyway, I spread the buttercream over the cake, using all of it, because I like a lot of buttercream in my cakes. I also had some lemon curd, so I put that on top of the buttercream too, although I admit I kept sneaking bits out the jar to eat (I really like lemon curd). Instead of covering it in buttercream like I usually would, I just spread a very thin layer of curd over the whole cake.

I don't like rolling out fondant myself, because it always is too thick, or too thin, or lumpy, or it just falls off the cake and tears. Thankfully, we had some ready-rolled stuff in the cupboard so I used that. I covered the cake, and luckily the fondant didn't rip. It nearly always rips, and I never seem to get it stick back together 🤔. I put it in the fridge while I cleared up (I did make quite a big mess this time, I admit).

I went to Cake International a while ago, and bought some musical stencil things - I used them for this and they worked amazingly!! I also bought some paintbrushes, which were perfect for this too...
Once I had cleared up, I took my cake out of the fridge and pressed in the stencils. I mixed some gold paint using lustre dust ad water, and for the black I just used food colouring. I used a very thin brush, and basically just painted over the stencils with black food colouring. I then painted along the tops of all the lines in gold paint. I left it in the fridge for a while and then when we ready to eat, I took it out and cut it.

I got some helpful feedback from my 'judges' (a.k.a. my sisters and parents) and they said:

• Put more lemon into the sponge (although personally I think it was fine because there was lemon curd in the middle)

And that's it!! Not bad for the first challenge...
Anyway, I think that the slight lemoniness in the cake was complimented by the curd in the middle which was quite strong, but not overpowering.