Mr Pimpling’s Angel Slice
About this build
Pink and plain sponge cakes are layered with buttercream, then covered with fondant and pink zigzags to recreate a giant Angel Slice.
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What the original account establishes
These notes distinguish the recorded result from quantities or settings the contributor did not specify. Follow each source link to the original passage.
- The cake was approximately 6 eggs, 250g butter, 500g flour, 400g caster sugar and a few drops of red colouring, approximate because the principal cake-maker, Sejal, does not care for measurements; the buttercream was 75g butter, an unremembered amount of icing sugar and vanilla essence, with 1 pack of fondant icing and a glacé icing of water, red colouring and icing sugar, £5.00 in all. The mixture started by feel and looked like scrambled eggs until more flour went in; it was split in two, half coloured pink, spooned into two borrowed bread tins and baked, with no temperature given. The three icings were a butterscotch, the account insists, not buttercream, between the layers, a slab of fondant rolled to thickness for the top, and the glacé icing, with a piping bag made meanwhile. The cakes took forever to cook in the middle and began to burn outside, so the makers cooked on and trimmed most of the burnt cake away in shaping; the pink cake was spread with the filling, the second cake placed on top, the rolled fondant laid on and cut to size, and the luminous pink glacé icing applied by the cake-maker without a slip. Source 1 · Source 2 · Source 3 · Source 4 · Source 5 · Source 6 · Source 7 · Source 8 · Source 9 · Source 10 · Source 11 · Source 12 · Source 13 · Source 14 · Source 15 · Source 16
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The original account
Cake
6 eggs
250g Butter
500g Flour
400g Caster Sugar
A few drops of Red food colouring
(These are approximate as the principal cakemaker -Sejal- does not care for measurements).
Buttercream Icing
75g Butter
Can’t remember how much icing sugar but it tasted good!!!
Vanilla essence
1 Pack of sickly-sweet Fondant Icing
Glace icing
Water
Red food colouring
Icing sugar
Total cost – £5.00
First we made a basic cake mixture, using Sejal’s tried and tested methods of a bit of flour here, a bit of butter there and ended with what looked like scrambled eggs.
More flour was needed.
Eventually we ended up, exhausted already, with our finished cake mixture.
We split this cake mix in two and added pink food colouring to one half.(22) We then spooned the mixture into two different bread tins (donated by Elli) and put them in the oven to bake.
Meanwhile, we turned our attention to the matter of icing. The angel slice demands not one, not two, but THREE types of icing. The first is the butterscotch (no buttercream, I’m being told off for that), which goes between the cake layers. The second is the fondant-type topping.
We bought a slab to roll out to the requisite thickness. Now, we thought we would be running out of time but thought we would squeeze in making the piping bag for the icing.
We thought we would be cutting it fine…how little we knew….
….the cakes took FOREVER to cook in the middle, but then began to burn on the outside. We began to get very worried and had a little conference to decide whether to carry on cooking (and burning) or have a very, very moist angel slice. We cooked on…
Our salvation was that the angel cakes needed to be shaped anyway, so most of the burnt cake was removed (this was after all a project where aesthetics and taste were both valued).
We then spread the butterscotch (dammit-cream!) on top of the pink cake and placed the second cake on top.
The rolled out fondant was then placed on top and cut to size.
By now, we were all getting very overexcited (and high off all the sugar!) but held it together for one of the most crucial stages-the luminous pink glace icing. One slip here would end the whole attempt. The cakemaker bravely stepped up and did a great job, I hope you’ll agree.
Ta da!
