Hello again.  I said I would put the recipe up for this so here goes:

Make two square sponge cakes (I am not sure of the size but generous square tins).  The quantities I used are:

12 ounces of unsalted butter, 12 ounces of caster sugar, 12 ounces of self raising flour, 6 large eggs, 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract (the more expensive kind from Waitrose)

Incidentally you also need four standard size vanilla jam swiss rolls.  You could make these or do as I did,  buy 4 of the cheapest own brand ones from Sainsburys.  Finally a box of cheap traditional shaped icecream cones (or the flat bottomed cones is ok)

Grease the tins thoroughly and I also put greaseproof paper in the bottom of the tins.

Beat the butter and sugar until “creamed”.  I cheat and use an electric whisk as my right shoulder is injured and has issues with me beating stuff by hand (good excuse, huh).  Beat the eggs separately in advance.  If using the whisk you can then add the eggs, vanilla extract and the flour all at once and beat until smooth.  If doing it by hand I would advise adding the vanilla then small amounts of the egg and flour,  always together to prevent curdling.

Split the mixture between the tins as equally as possible.

Cook on 190 for around 25 minutes,  you have to amend this to your own oven (I have a fan oven) and in fact it took nearer 40 minutes this time, I had to turn it down and cover the, to prevent burning, not sure why that was, temperamental older oven I guess.  Anyway they are cooked when the top springs back when lightly pressed.

Let those cool totally.

Make buttercream.  Don’t ask me for quantities.  I just threw in unsalted butter and loads of icing sugar and whisked (again with electric whisk) to sandwich the cakes together.  Maybe about half a pat of butter and 6 ounces of icing sugar?  Trial and error I am afraid.

Then make the strawberry buttercream to cover it.  Again I just threw it in.  Bearing in mind that you have to cover the swiss rolls as well I think I used 3 pats of butter and about half a bag of icing sugar, also around 4 teaspoons of strawberry flavouring along with 3-5 teaspoons of red food colouring (it should be pink,  not scarlet!)

Cover the main cakes then cover each swiss roll and stick one at each corner of the square cake (the castle body).  Smooth the icing down with a palette knife but make sure it covers everything.  Cover four ice cream cones in the pink buttercream and add one to each “tower” to be the turret.  Add more covered ice cream cones to the body of the castle to make it more fancy if you wish.

Whilst the icing is still “wet” I add chocolate finger biscuits for the arrow slits and use a pink wafer or similar rectangular biscuit for the doors and a draw bridge.  Frankly by this stage because it was so hot everything was sliding off so mine was disastrous but if you make this at a cooler time of year (or perhaps in a refrigerated room) it should be ok.

I used “toppers” with messages on from my hand made greeting card stuff and stuck them on cocktail sticks to be banners on the turrets.  Again mine fell down the melting icing this time but hopefully yours will stick!  I recall when I made the cake for Older daughter’s friend we hand made a banner and strung that between two of the turrets.

Enjoy!