Cakes!

As it's coming up to the teaching term, I thought I'd celebrate the impending exams* by baking appropriate cakes for every subject
*This is a joke, obviously
These were the plans

A 'sea slug cake' for biology, with the classic red markings that warn predators they're distasteful
A world map for geography
Maths symbol cupcakes
And something for history that I had no idea about at the time

They ended up like this:

The maths and biology cakes came out pretty much as planned. For the geography cake I added in the plate boundaries (with some continental drift for Africa and S. America...) and the history cakes, which I decided on at the last minute, were going to be red and gold for good luck and wealth but came out pink instead... Never mind. 

I could tell from the beginning it was going to be a bit of a mammoth task as the equipment/ingredient collection involved 2 mixing bowls 

The first cake I made was the geography cake. I used a Devil's Food Cake mix because I thought if I was going to make four cakes, I might as well get a bit of help. So that took about five minutes and I also got to see the wonderful mixture that is eggs, oil and water in a bowl... 

Luckily it looked nicer when I added the actual cake mixture. :D From there I moved on to the lemon cakes for maths, as our tiny, broken oven still needed a while to warm up. 

(Top: chocolate cake, bottom: lemon cupcakes)

While the lemon cupcakes were cooking, I made the third cake (Victoria Sponge for my sea slug). 

In the same time I traced out the world image I was using and then stenciled it lightly onto the green icing. It was pretty difficult, so I may have missed a few islands here and there. Sorry to all those millions of people. 

By now, I thought I really should do something for history just to show I was equally committed to this subject. I thought about doing a red-velvet-style cake because of the red and gold Chinese colours and also because of Elizabeth I's hair. The emphasis is kind of on the 'style', the icing came out more pink than I intended and I didn't have cream cheese so it was buttercream instead. 

(Don't worry, I cut the burnt bit off as soon it was cool, but I thought I'd still put this picture in here anyway - mistake? - because it honestly looked like it was going to erupt. Maybe Louise's suggestion of a volcano cake was appropriate after all...)

My favourite part: constructing the Sea Slug (he really needs a name). And I think he looks pretty good. A layer of jam, then fondant icing. I used Skittles instead of Smarties because Sainsbury's didn't sell Smarties?!

Half way though and this is what the table looked like. Except in this image you can't see the floor.... and the top of the oven... and all the chairs...(to give you an idea, every surface was covered)

These are the maths cakes, with the symbols x, y, pi, phi, theta, alpha, beta, lambda, mu, e, k, and the vector direction i.

1) Devil's Food Cake covered in chocolate icing
2) And fondant icing, and the map
3) Plate boundaries

And here they all are finished! I didn't include all the ingredients and recipe steps, because they're just the standard for lemon cupcakes, chocolate cake and Victoria sponge cake