Cake decorating - Game of Thrones

Last year I was on maternity leave during Big E's birthday. I decided I had time to properly decorate a cake. I was also thinking I better start developing some cake skills for the little one I was about to have. My mother-in-law was a master at the children's birthday cake, so I had a lot to live up to!

At the time we were obsessed with Breaking Bad, so I made a BB themed cake. I'll post a photo at the bottom.

I was pleased with the result and people still remember it, so I thought I better step up this year!

This year...Game of Thrones is our new passion.

Like everything I do, I just want to do it quickly! I don't have the patience to spend two hours crafting icing. I also don't have the skills and I'm not that bothered about it being that good. I just want it to make people smile and be fun to make.

There were loads of ideas on Pinterest - cake pops decorated as severed heads, coats of arms made out of marzipan, etc, but quite a few people had cakes which were treasure chests with Dynareous' three dragon eggs. I know people who have made similar cakes, so I went down that line, especially as we have a really delicious cake recipe that is baked in a loaf tin.

There was some amazing treasure chests online, but I wanted the cheat's version! I looked up "how to make a pirate chest" on YouTube and got some really simple ideas of how to fake it.

Step 1 - Make a cake

We have a great one by Nigella Lawson - Quadruple Chocolate Loaf Cake. It is from her Feast book in the "chocolate hall of fame" section. Bung all the ingredients into a mixer and then bake it. It's delicious.

Step 2 - Make cake into a treasure chest

My first idea to make a chest was to cut a square out of the top of the cake, so that was then a hole to fill with "sand" and the dragon eggs. I'd seen this when people had designed cakes that look like baths. However, I was worried I would make the cake and then ruin it by trying to cut out the required amount.

I looked around and lots of people suggested using KitKats to make a treasure chest. Sounded like the perfect, easy option I was looking for! If the KitKats were taller than the cake this then made an artificial space to fill.

As you can see, I trimmed down the original cake so the KitKats were taller. I also cut off the ends of the cake, so it was exactly the length of two KitKat bars

I melted a bit of chocolate, which I then painted onto the cake and KitKats. This solidified and held them in the place.

I then dipped chocolate fingers in the melted chocolate and put them at the corners to fill the gaps.

Step 3 - Make the dragon eggs

There are some amazing GoT dragon eggs out there! I have no idea how some people are so patient. I decided that I would buy chocolate eggs and then wrap them in icing. That way I would get a perfect egg shape, without the hard work.

I thought there would be more options around, but lots of the chocolate eggs I had thought I could use were not available outside the Easter period.

Only one option then...Kinder eggs! I thought this would be a fun extra to use.

I didn't want to make my own icing. I knew I needed three colours for the three dragons and fortunately Dr Oetker had a box of different colours that suited my needs. They came in small amounts too and were really easy to work. I rolled the icing out and wrapped the Kinder eggs up. I then took a cocktail stick and drew "dragon scales" on.

Step 4 - Put it all together

On the TV series, it looks like the eggs are lying in sand. I crushed up digestive biscuits and sprinkled this in the cavity to make a bed for the eggs to lie in. Then I placed the eggs on top, added some candles and....voila!

I did have a plan to use more of the yellow icing to make details on the treasure chest, but I was so pleased with myself I didn't want to ruin it! I decided best not to spoil it with fiddly bits I couldn't manage!

Big E loved it! It was fun eating it too!

This was Breaking Bad last year...