Little lion cake

Little lion cake

From the kitchen of  LIZ2002

servings |  20
estimated Points® per serving | 25

For cake:
* 200g dried apricots
* 3 large free range eggs
* 150g butter
* 300g self-raising flour
* 150g caster sugar

For icing:
* 500g white ready-to-roll royal icing
* yellow food dye
* brown food dye
* 4 tablespoons apricot jam

To make sponge:
* Cream butter and sugar, stir in eggs and beat
* Chop apricots into slices and add to mixture
* Sieve in the flour and beat

* To make the lion, you'll need to use a large pudding bowl for the body, and a small pudding bowl for the head
* Grease and flour the bowls, then transfer mixture into them (don't overfill or cake mixture will rise and flow over the sides)
* Cook for 40 mins on gas mark 4/180C
* Remove from bowls and leave to cool on a wire rack

Icing:
* Add yellow food dye to the icing and work through until dye is evenly spread to achieve a nice lion shade
* Put icing in bowl and cover with cling film so it doesn't dry out
* Slice about 2" off both the little and large sponge mounds, so that both have a flat end
* Push both the flat ends together and spread the apricot jam over the sponges
* Dust a surface with icing sugar and roll out yellow royal icing (reserving about 100g to make legs and tail)
* Drape rolled icing over the rolling pin and transfer over the sponges, pressing to shape. Trim around base of lion
* Make legs, tail, nose and ears and stick onto the body with apricot jam
* Add brown food dye to the remaining yellow royal icing and work through to achieve lion's mane shade
* Put the brown icing into the icing bag and pipe on mane, eyes, nose, mouth and tail end