My next-door neighbour Sharon ordered this birthday cake.  Her 11-year-old son Ciarán and his aunt both share the same birthday and always celebrate jointly.  They were having a Hawaiian-themed party, and asked me to make a cake that would fit in with the theme.  I covered the cake in cream-coloured sugarpaste and added some golden caster sugar to the board to resemble sand, and handmade a couple of palm trees from modelling paste.  The bottom half of the cake is decorated to look like the sea, with some brightly coloured fish and a dolphin.  I made a volcano for the top of the cake, surrounded by Hawaiian flowers.

The cake itself was a 10-inch chocolate sponge, with a 6-inch chocolate sponge “volcano”, filled with chocolate buttercream, and covered with chocolate buttercream and sugarpaste.