Baby's 1st Birthday Cake

Preheat your oven to 180⁰C/160⁰C fan oven/gas mark 4. Grease and line 3x 8inch baking tins.

Place your softened butter and sugar into a bowl and beat with an electric mixer until light in colour and fluffy in texture.

In a jug, beat together your eggs, Vanilla Bean Paste and milk. Then, slowly add to the butter and sugar mix along with the flour and Baking Powder.

Mix together until well combined.

Divide your cake batter between your three tins, place in the oven and bake for 30-35 minutes until cooked. To test if the cakes are cooked, insert a skewer and if it comes out clean then the cakes are ready.

Place the cooked cakes onto a cooling rack and cool in the tins for 15 minutes then remove from the tins to cool fully.

Place one layer of cake on a cake stand or serving plate. Pipe or spoon a 1cm thick ring of Vanilla Buttercream Style Icing on the rim of the cake. Spread a thin layer of jam in the inside of the ring of Vanilla Buttercream.

Place the second cake on top and repeat the Buttercream ring and jam layer.

Add your third layer of cake. Then crumb coat the whole cake, start by spreading Buttercream Style Icing on the top of the cake and then work your way down the sides until the whole cake is covered in a layer of Buttercream. Chill for 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, take the remaining 400g of Buttercream Style Icing and divide between 5 bowls.

Make your blue colour buttercream by adding a couple of drops of blue Extra Strong Colour Gel to one of the bowls, mixing well to create a pale blue colour.

Repeat step using the different Extra Strong Colour Gels to create a pale green, lilac, light pink and coral Buttercreams.

Transfer all your coloured Buttercreams into individual piping bags and snip off the ends to create a hole about 1cm wide to pipe through.

Then, to create the Buttercream paint smear pattern on the cake – pipe a line of Buttercream dots of each colour 1 cm wide in a random pattern around the top of the side of the cake.

To smear each dot, press a finger or the back of teaspoon into the dot then gently pull down to create a smear.

Continue to pipe and smear dots of the coloured Buttercream around the whole of the cake spreading out the dots more as you get towards the bottom of the cake.