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I was asked recently to make a “minecraft” cake for Tyren’s 10th birthday. Apart from being aware that Minecraft was a game my grandson played on his X-Box I knew very little about it. I Googled as much information as possible to find out what this was all about so that I could get an idea of what I needed to do to make this cake.

One suggestion on the internet was to use a template so that all squares would be the same size. By placing baking paper over the grid and then using a pizza cutter and thick plastic to give a straight line my minecraft squares were on the way. 

I decided to buy the fondant this time rather than make my own and began preparing all the different colours that I needed. Boy oh boy, I didn’t know what I was in for! I decided to try and work out the number of squares I required to cover the cake size that I was making, hopefully allowing some extras so that I wouldn’t run out. 

I made a template for the sword in the size I required and cut it out in fondant and inserted a skewer through its length to add stability when placed into the cake. Once dry I attached the squares with an icing syrup in the colour required for the “stone” sword. I decided rather than put squares on the back of the sword I would roll out more fondant and attach it in one piece. 

I used the “best butter cake” recipe that we have used before and baked 2 x 8″ square cakes and iced them with light chocolate buttercream icing.  One tip I picked up on the internet was to use a flat scraper over kitchen paper-towel and smooth the icing. I wasn’t sure how it would work, but was really surprised with the result. Now we are ready to get the squares on.

The suggested method of applying the squares to the buttercream did not work for me. I am not sure whether the intention was to apply them whilst still wet, whereas I had allowed them to dry so that I could handle them easier.  The only way was to use an icing syrup and apply this to each square and place them one by one on the cake. After hours and hours of doing this and the time getting very late, I decided to quicken up the process on the top by applying them in sets of 4 squares.

To complete the cake we added the sword, Steve, TNT and the pig along with the Happy Birthday. I must say I was glad when this cake was finally finished, but quite happy with the way it looked. 

In hindsight if I ever made another Minecraft cake I would make the squares much larger than the 1cm that these were.

At the party quite a few people admired the finished cake, and it tasted really good which is very important. I must admit I was relieved when it was all over.