Kids Animal Cake

For the cake: Prepare the batter and divide between two 23 cm | 9" and two 18 cm | 7" cake tins lined with greaseproof paper. Bake for 40 - 50 minutes until a cake tester comes out clean. Remove to a wire rack to cool.

To decorate: Once the cakes are cool, turn out from the tins. Brush all four cakes with apricot jam and then stack the 18 cm cakes on top of each other. Do the same for the 23 cm cakes.

Sit the 23 cm stack on a cake stand and brush the top with more apricot jam. Roll out 250 g of the fondant icing to 1 cm | 0.5" thickness on a work surface dusted with cornflour. Drape over the stacked cakes, smoothing over the top, edges, and sides.

Brush the top and sides of the 18 cm stack with more jam. Roll out 200 g of the fondant icing to 1 cm | 0.5" thickness on a work surface dusted with cornflour. Drape over the stacked cakes, smoothing over the top, edges, and sides.

Brush the centre of the top of the 23 cm stack with more jam and then attach the 18 cm stack on top. take four separate 100 g balls of fondant and colour each with dabs of blue, orange, yellow, and green colouring respectively. Knead well until uniform in colour.

Roll out each ball to 0.5 cm | 0.25" thickness. Cut assorted strips of icing, as per the image, and secure to the bottom tier with more jam. Reserve the excess fondant.

With some of the remaining coloured fondant, cut flag shapes and thin strips of blue icing. Attach to the side of the top tier using jam. Re-roll any remaining coloured fondant to 0.5 cm | 0.25" thickness and cut 4 cm | 1.5" squares. Use any excess to fashion some letters and numbers.

Take half of the remaining fondant, divide into three pieces, and shape into squares. Attach the coloured squares to them using a damp paintbrush, and then decorate with the letters and numbers.

Divide the remaining fondant into three pieces and colour each grey, brown, and dark yellow respectively with a few specs of colouring. Knead until uniformly coloured. Using the image as a guideline, fashion the grey into an elephant, the brown into a monkey, and the yellow into the body of a lion.