Alphabet/ number ‘cakes’ have been a recent Instagram craze throughout 2018. They look beautiful and are the perfect celebration showstopper. However, they are not ‘cakes’ but more a reconstructed fruit tart- I made mine using 2 almond & vanilla pastry tart bases, sandwiched with a mascarpone vanilla cream filling and topped with fresh fruit, macarons and other goodies. I have done the letter A today for my friend’s birthday, but you can do any number/ letter/ initials. You could even make shapes such as a heart for valentine’s day or a ring shape for an engagement gift- the principal is still the same. I have decorated this cake with pretty pink treats but you can use whatever you want- to personalise the cake even further. I have overdone the quantity of pastry and cream, as you may be making 2 letters, or 2 numbers- today I used the spare mixture to make some small individual tarts.

Ingredients:

For the pastry:

• 300g plain flour
• 75g ground almonds
• 75g icing sugar
• 200g cold butter, cut into cubes (I left mine out the fridge a few hours before baking, so it is soft to cut but still firm)
• Pinch of salt
• 1 egg
• 2 teaspoon vanilla extract

For the cream filling:

• 500g mascarpone
• 500ml double cream
• 200g icing sugar
• 3 teaspoon vanilla extract

To decorate:

• Macaroons- I used the M&S range
• Fresh flowers
• Fresh fruit (I used strawberries- some cut into cubes & some halved (with stalks still on for colour contrast), blackberries and cherries)
• Toffee popcorn
• Mini marshmallows (Tesco)
• Coconut flavoured mini meringues (M&S)
• Maltesers
• Pick ‘n’ Mix (white chocolate jazzies)
• Mini fudge chunks (Waitrose)
• Small coloured sugar balls
• Edible silver glitter

Method:

1. Use a food processor and put in the plain flour, ground almonds, icing sugar, butter and pinch of salt.
2. Blend until crumbs are formed.
3. Then whisk the egg and vanilla in a separate bowl.
4. Pour this into the food processor and blend until a dough is formed.
5. Empty the dough onto some cling film, wrap up and refrigerate for an hour until chilled.
6. Meanwhile, make the letter template for the base. I just typed in the letter ‘A’ into google, then zoomed in onto the picture until I got the size I wanted. I then traced around the letter with a piece of paper on the screen. Mine was larger than an A4 piece of paper, so I used 2 pieces of paper and stuck them together. I then cut out the shape on the paper.
7. Preheat oven to 180C/375F.
8. Once out of the fridge, split the dough into 2.
9. Get 2 baking trays and line with baking parchment. Roll out the dough until slightly larger than your letter/ number.
10. Put into the fridge for 30 minutes to set.
11. Then get your letter/ number and cut around the edges with a sharp knife to form 2 letters/ numbers.
12. I had a few bits of pastry left over so lined some tart cases to make extra.
13. Put into the oven for 10-13 minutes or until golden around the edges. Leave to cool. Important: the pastry is very soft once just out of the oven, so do not attempt to move the letter/ number or it can break. Keep it on the tray until cooled, when it will harden up.
14. To make the cream, beat the mascarpone and icing sugar, until smooth.
15. Add the vanilla extract and double cream and beat until stiff peaks and firm. I put this in the fridge for about 15 minutes to firm up.
16. Transfer this to a piping bag. To do this, I use a ziplock bag. I used a circular piping nozzle and put it into a corner of a ziplock bag, then snipped off the end. If you do not have a piping nozzle, just snip off the end of the ziplock bag. To fill the bag, put it into a tall glass, fold the bag edges around the glass, then fill. Then invert the edges back over.
17. When decorating the cake, I decorate it within the cake box I am giving the cake in, as it can be quite difficult to transfer the cake later. I got my cake boxes from amazon- link here.
18. Once the cake has completely cooled, pipe drops of cream around the first base. Pipe in 2 lines, to fill the space.
19. Then carefully place the other letter/ number on top, to align.
20. Pipe more cream on the surface of this, in the same pattern as before.
21. Decorate the cake.
22. If serving later, keep in the fridge as this contains dairy products.

Enjoy! X