Snowy Days And An Igloo Cake

I've been rather too excited about all the snow we had yesterday. I spent ages just watching the snow falling and couldn't wait to get out in it today. After moving from the West Midlands to Somerset nearly 17 years ago I haven't had the chance to play in the snow much since I was little. So when we had the chance to move east to Berkshire 7 months ago, I was looking forward to seeing some proper snow in the winter. I think we had around 4 inches of snow yesterday and today we went to the park, originally with the intention of building a snowman but it was so cold that we wimped out after taking a few photos and came home. My boyfriend grew up in Devon and he said that this was the most snow he had ever seen before. We both had fun jumping in the fresh patches of snow and seeing how deep our footprints were. Childish, yes but it was fun.

So whilst the snow was falling yesterday I decided it would be a good time to make an igloo cake using the hemisphere cake tin that I bought from Lakeland recently. I had the idea for the cake last week and as we had a snow day yesterday it seemed like the perfect time to bake it. It's a coconut sponge covered in white sugar paste and is deceptively simple to make but looks quite impressive.

Ingredients - you will need a 16cm diameter hemisphere cake tin

For the cake:
175g butter
175g caster sugar
3 eggs
175g self raising flour
150g dessicated coconut
60ml milk

To decorate:
300g white sugar paste
apricot jam

• Preheat the oven to 160C and spray the tin with cake release spray or grease well.
• Beat together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy then beat in the eggs one at a time. Stir through the coconut and milk then fold in the flour and spoon into the prepared tin. Bake for 90 minutes or until an inserted skewer comes out clean. If the top browns too much before the cake is cooked through then place some tin foil over the top. Turn out onto a wire rack and leave to cool with the dome facing upwards.

• When the cake is cold, trim the base as it will have peaked slightly whilst baking, so that you get a flat base to the cake. A bread knife is quite for carving cakes with, the offcuts are the bakers treat! Next  brush the cake all over with a couple of spoonfuls of apricot jam. 
• To cover the cake, roll out 250g of the sugar paste to around 3mm thick and carefully lay over the top of the cake, smoothing the surface as you go. Trim any overhanging edges so you get a neat finish.
• To make the door for the igloo use the remaining sugar paste and roll it into a fat cylinder then bend it into a curved shape and press onto the cake to join it together.
• To define the blocks of the igloo use a cutting wheel modelling tool or a small sharp knife to score a criss cross pattern over the top. Sprinkle a little dessicated coconut on top to look like fresh snow.

I'm updating this to enter into the Alphabakes challenge for March where the letter is 'I' and it also just happens to be snowing again! The challenge is run by Ros and Caroline (March's host)