Magician's Cake

For the cake: Make the vanilla sponges. Once cool, turn out from their tins and sandwich together using the apricot jam for glue.

For the icing: Pinch off approximately 100 g of the fondant icing and add a few specks of brown colouring to it. Knead well until uniform in colour and then roll out to 1 cm | 0.5" on a work surface dusted with cornflour.

Brush the top and sides of the cake with a thin layer of apricot jam. Drape the brown fondant over the cake, smoothing it over the sides and edges of the cake. Trim any excess with a sharp paring knife.

Pinch off another 100 g of the fondant and colour with specks of purple and red colouring. Knead well until uniform in colour and then roll out to 1 cm | 0.5" on a work surface dusted with cornflour. Use a paring knife to cut the trim of the round of fondant.

Brush the top of the brown fondant with more apricot jam before draping the purple fondant over it, smoothing it well on top. Stick parts of the purple fondant to the brown on the sides, creating a little texture where needed.

For the cards, pinch off 200 g of the fondant and roll out to 1 cm | 0.5" thickness on a work surface dusted with cornflour. Cut 8 - 9 card-shaped pieces using a paring knife. Stack 4 - 5 of them and decorate the top using a paint brush. Decorate four remaining cards with the different suits.

Fan out and overlap the four suited cards and use a little jam to stick to them to the edge of the cake. Sit the deck of cards just over the corner of the fanned out cards, using more jam as needed.

Take 500 g of the remaining fondant and pinch off approximately 150 g. Colour the larger piece with dabs of black colouring and knead well until uniform in colour. Shape most of the fondant into the base of magician's hat using your hands. Shape the remaining piece into the rim of the hat, using a paring knife to cut out a whole in the middle for the pink fondant.

Divide the 150 g piece of fondant in half and colour one piece with specks of pink colouring. Knead until uniformly pink and then shape into two discs, one the same width as the top of the base of the hat. The other disc should be approximately 2 cm | 1" smaller in diameter. Stack them using more jam and attach to the top of the base of the hat.

Shape the remaining 75 g of the fondant into a bunny, using trimmings to help fashion ears, cheeks, feet, and eyes. Use a little pink colouring and a clean paintbrush to colour as needed. Attach the black rim of the hat to the pink fondant and then position the bunny on top.

With the remaining fondant, divide it in three and colour each piece, red, green, and black respectively. Knead well until uniformly coloured. Shape the red into petals and the green into the stem of a rose. Position no top of the cake.