Easter-themed cake

Children love to bake and what better way to have fun together than with this special cake?

Ingredients

• 4 Extra large eggs
• 1½ cups castor sugar
• 2 level cups flour – if you want a chocolate cake, take out ¼ cup flour and replace with a ¼ cup of cocoa.
• 10ml baking powder
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 50ml oil
• 1 cup boiling water 
• 5 ml vanilla essence

Instructions

1. Set the oven to 200ºC and line the bottom of a 20cm deep cake tin with greaseproof paper and grease the sides well.
2. Beat the eggs and castor sugar well until creamy. Fold in the sifted dry ingredients gently, then the oil, vanilla and boiling water. Do not beat but mix well.
3. Pour into the prepared tin and bake for about 25 minutes, until cake springs back when touched on top.
4. Leave the cake in the pan on a cooling rack for 5 minutes before removing it. Ice only when cool. If you are pressed for time use a cake mix or buy a plain round sponge cake.

Icing recipe

Ingredients

• 500g margarine
• 4 cups sifted icing sugar
• Vanilla essence or other  flavouring

Instructions

1. Beat the margarine and add icing sugar one cup at a time. Beat well.
2. Beat in the essence.
3. You may need to add a little more icing sugar if you are going to do the basket weave so that the tube work keeps its shape.
4. Colour ¼ of the icing for the upright lines and the rest of the icing for the basket weave. The basket weave lines can also be done with a fork if you don’t have the time or skill to master a piping bag.
5. For the grass, place ¼ cup of desecated coconut into a bowl, pour in a little green food colouring and mix until the colour has been evenly distributed.
6. Place store-bought, candy-coated easter eggs on top, twist pipe cleaners to make the basket handle and press it in to the side of the cake.

• Taken from Your Baby, the Easter cake of the month!