Raa Raa The Noisy Lion Birthday Cake And Party Food

It has been obvious in my mind for some time what the theme for Jenson's 2nd birthday party would be. Both boys love watching Raa Raa The Noisy Lion and Jenson in particular is a big fan and would probably watch it all day long alongside his other favourite, Peppa Pig!

 Raa Raa The Noisy Lion Birthday Cake

I am not very good at using fondant icing but I decided to bite the bullet and give it a go using some for the Raa Raa cake. I opted for a triple layer chocolate marble cake, sandwiched together and covered in chocolate buttercream and then decorated with icing and orange flavoured chocolate buttons. 

Here is how I made it

The cake batter filled 3 x 25cm pie pans
It served 18 and were good sized portions but smaller slices would have served more guests!

Ingredients

375g unsalted butter

375g caster sugar

225ml cola

300g self raising flour

75g cocoa powder

6 eggs

1 tube of bright orange liquid gel food colouring

2 tubs Betty Crocker chocolate buttercream

(the boys cousin cant eat dairy and this is dairy free so just as easy to use it as make my own with dairy free spread and tastes yummy!)

2 bags of Tate & Lyle orange buttons

1 pink marshmallow

1 packet of yellow fondant icing

1 packet of orange fondant icing

1 packet of black fondant icing

(I had left overs of all 3)

1 large chocolate button

4 flaked almonds

2  tsp of jam, warmed slightly (I used raspberry)

Method

Pre heat oven to 180oC / 160oC fan

grease and line your cake tins

melt the butter and cola in a saucepan over a low heat until melted

take 2 bowls:

- in one add the coca powder, half the qty of sugar and 112g of the flour

- in the other add the remaining sugar and flour

Beat 3 eggs into each bowl of dry ingredients

divide the butter and cola mix between the two bowls

Mix all the ingredients in each bowl

In the bowl that does not contain the cocoa powder, all the whole tube of orange food colouring and mix again to distribute the colour in the batter

Pour the batter from each bowl into the cake tins - each bowl needs to be divided between each cake tin as you want to create a marbled effect. Once the tins have been filled with the orange and chocolate batter mixes, swirl the end of a wooden spoon through the batter to create a marbled effect.

Place in the oven and cook for about 30 minutes until cooked through properly and then

allow to cool completely

Once cooled, sandwich each sponge with the buttercream and then cover the cake with the buttercream too.

Add the orange buttons around the perimeter of the cake

To make the fondant face and mane, I drew around the cake pan onto grease proof paper. I then drew Raa Raa's face and ears, hair etc.. within the circle and traced all of his features onto the different coloured fondant icings (which had been rolled out) and then cut them out. I stuck them onto the buttercream using the warmed jam. The buttercream was the same colour as Raa Raa's mane so this meant I did not need a brown coloured fondant icing (phew!).

I then cut a large chocolate button in half to make the eyebrows, broke 4 flaked almonds in half to make his teeth and sliced the end of a pink marshmallow to make his tongue.

That was it - my Raa Raa The Noisy Lion Cake was done - hurrah!

Raa Raa The Noisy Lion Themed Party Food

I like to think of ways of presenting party food to the guests which are a little different and in keeping with the theme. This year to make life easier and not to make far too much food (my mistake with previous parties - I seriously under estimated how little children eat at birthday parties in the past!), I decided to plate up the food for each child just before the party began. The children were aged from 2 to 8 so I tried to do a good mix of food.

I made two plates - a savoury and sweet one and they each contained the following

The Savoury Plate 

Cubby Buggy Hot Dog

a roll filled with tomato sauce and sausages and wheels were made using grapes and cocktail sticks

Jungle Drum

sausage roll

Flutterfly

a circle of ham, topped with a smaller circle of cheese and topped with a green grape cut in half as wings and a red grape sliced long ways as the head with 2 twiglet halves for antennas

Hufty Hooty Sticks

breadsticks

Zebby Snacks

cheesy puffs and hula hoops

(just puffs for the birthday boy being only 2)

Crocky's Wobbly Teeth

cucumber sticks

Raa Raa's Whistle

a party blower (well it was a noisy lion party!)

The Sweet Plate 

Topsy's Musical Stones

2 iced biscuits

Raa Raa's Favourite Fruity Things

fruit on a stick

Topsy's Book

mini flapjack

Jingly Jangly Jungle Jelly

orange jelly

Jungle Jiggle Choob

fromage frais in a tube

Flutteflies

2 butterfly sweets

Each child also had an Ooo Ooo banana and strawberry smoothie

It was a successful jingly jangly jungle party for Jenson :)

( I was sent some party accessories eg, the blue table cloths the party blowers and party string from Asda which I used at the party which proved very useful)