A perfect treat for an Autumn evening
This chocolate hedgehog cake is perfect for this time of the year when there are hedgehogs bustling around in the garden at night time. Hedgehogs love to feast on slugs so complete your cake with rolled fondant slugs and snails. Make a few more creepy crawlies such as spiders, worms and wood louse if you wish.
Ingredients
For the hedgehog cakes you will need one chocolate sponge cake recipe, one big bag of chocolate buttons or four ordinary size bags, rolled fondant, food colouring, and a cake drum.
Bake the cake in a well-greased ceramic bowl in a preheated oven at 170 degrees for 40 to 45 minutes. The deeper the bowl, the longer it will have to go in the oven. If it starts to cook too fast around the edges, cover the bowl with tinfoil for the remaining cooking time. For the mini hedgehogs, grease the holes of cupcake tins before pouring in the cake batter.
Decoration
While the cakes are cooling, colour some fondant green and roll it out so it is slightly bigger than the drum. Dust the drum with icing sugar and sprinkle over some water. This will make a glue so your fondant sticks on easily. Transfer the fondant to the drum quickly and then trim the sides. Once the cakes have cooled, turn them out onto the iced drum and cover them with chocolate buttercream. Place the chocolate buttons all over the cakes for the hedgehogsí spikes. Leave a gap at the front for the hedgehogís face. Use what you like for the eyes and nose – Smarties, glace cherries or raisins and other dried fruit.
Sculpt leaves
Cut and sculpt leaves out of rolled fondant coloured red, yellow and other autumn colours. Scatter over the cake drum around the hedgehogs. Roll the slugs out of black, brown or ivory fondant. For the tendrils, pinch the slugsí heads and very gently pull out the fondant slightly. If it breaks you can just roll it up and try again. Carve marks on top using a cocktail stick.
Alternatives: Make chocolate leaves by brushing chocolate over clean leaves. Allow to set before gently peeling the leaf off the chocolate. Make several because you will lose some as they break easily. When you put the cake on the table, why not surround it with some real dried leaves? Just donít swap the sugar slugs for real ones!