CORGI CAKE

No, it's not a cake for corgis or a novelty for Simi! I've been practising for the Queen's Diamond Jubilee, you see. I'm not a monarchist but I am enough of a hypocrite to become one for a day or two, in order to join in the festivities from afar. Therefore I'd been wondering what to make to take along to a friend's Jubilee party here and, as I also wanted to try out the torta paradiso recipe in the Benvenuti a tavola book, this seemed an ideal opportunity.  

But how to decorate it?  I decided that using the red [OK, it's pink but it will do] and blue icing sugar we can get here would be the simplest option and then I began searching the internet for line drawings to use as a stencil.  I rejected crowns, silhouettes of royal personnages, Buckingham Palace shapes and the like because they would have involved complicated cutting with a craft knife on a cutting mat [neither of which I possess].  Finally I found a simple line drawing of a corgi, Her Majesty's favourite pet dog breed, and that, I decided, would be cheerful and different.  Here is the result and, by the way, the torta paradiso did rise but I turned it upside down to decorate it, thinking I could deftly turn the slices over again to serve them. It tasted, as its name suggests, heavenly!