Olympic Velodrome Cake

There are only 10 days left until the opening ceremony of the Olympics and I for one am EXCITED! Often called the Greatest Show on Earth, this is once in a lifetime opportunity to watch an amazing sporting spectacle.

I love a bit of cycling and I shall avidly watching events in the velodrome, so this cake seemed to be a perfect bake. It's actually a coffee cake made in a 10 inch Savarin/ring mould with coffee icing on top and some cute little resin cyclists. It was a light cake with only a hint of coffee.

As well as being suitable for the Olympics, this would also be a great cake for any cycling fans out there who are celebrating a birthday. It was simple to make and the resulting cake is quite fun!

The cyclists are available from a variety of online cake stores. Although this cake is best suited to cycling, the principle could also be used for athletics by adding little resine athletes instead...and maybe even some green or orange icing to represent the running track!

I did have one little mishap when making this, it's my second cake in the last week to spill out of the tin, so having just cleaned the oven after the White Chocolate and Cherry Loaf cake incident, it's oven cleaning round two. The velodrome in the recipe picture did appear to be a lot deeper but nonetheless, it turned out ok and was quite tasty!

The theme for Calendar Cakes this month could only be the Olympics, so this is my first entry. For more details of how to enter click here. My co-host for Calendar Cakes is Rachel from Dolly Bakes and Rachel's entry this month is a Olympic stadium bundt cake, so it seems between the two of us we're attempting to recreate the whole of the Olympic park in cake!

Ingredients

450g unsalted butter
450g caster sugar
8 eggs
4-5 tbsp strong espresso coffee
450g flour

Coffee icing

300g icing sugar
3 tbsp strong black coffee

White icing

50g icing sugar

Preheat the oven to 180c/160c fan/gas 4. Grease a 10 inch/24cm savarin tin and line the bottom. I used Wilton Cake Release and didn't line the bottom and the cake came out perfectly.

Cream together the butter and sugar until it's pale and fluffy, ensure the butter is softened to start. Then one by one beat in the eggs. Make up the espresso coffee but ensure it is sufficiently cooled before adding to the mixture. Finally, sift and fold in the flour. Spoon into the tin and bake for around 40-45 minutes. It's probably worth checking after 30 minutes and then if it's browning too much, loosely cover in foil. The cake should be cooled in the tin before gently easing out onto a plate or serving board.

To create the velodrome effect, you should make small marks around the top of the cake about 2cm in from the outside edge, then make more marks about 3cm down the inside, from the inside edge. Gently cut on an angle between the two to give the sloping velodrome effect.

To make the coffee icing mix the coffee and icing sugar together. It should be a fairly thick consistency but you should be able to drizzle it over the cake. The icing should cover the whole of the inside circle and there should be a few drizzles down the outside of the cake. Finally, make up the white icing with water and spoon into a piping bag. When the coffee icing is dry, pipe three circles around the inside of the cake to represent the lanes. The finishing touch is the addition of the cyclist!
* Adapted from the BBC Food website