Everyone loves a steno cake!

It has been decided that stenographers are to be replaced at the Old Bailey by a digital recording system (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/art-of-court-stenographer-faces-the-final-sentence-7584129.html) Ridiculous decision that will result in an awful lot of trouble and delayed trials I'm sure, and also absolutely gutting for all the stenos who work there. Booo!

To try and put a bit of cheer into the last day of the Bailey, I made a steno cake modelled on my own machine. Consequently, my Stentura 8000LX is now all sticky. Working from a photo might have been a better idea than having my steno next to me while I threw icing sugar all over my kitchen.

Anyway, onto the steno cake tutorial!

You'll need a 20cm x 20cm square cake tin - mine is a loose bottomed Prestige tin - and then whip up some sponge. I made mine out of marble cake, which is simply:

*NOTE: YOU WILL NEED DOUBLE THE AMOUNTS LISTED HERE AS YOU NEED TO BAKE TWO CAKES!*

6 oz caster sugar
6 oz Stork margerine
6 oz self-raising flour
1.5 tsp of baking powder
3 eggs
1 spoonfull of cocoa powder

Mix the sugar and margerine (I use Stork as it's good for baking, but you can use whatever butter or marg you like) and cream them together so its nice and smooth. Then sieve in the flour and baking powder, mix well, then in a separate bowl whisk the eggs and bosh them in. Give it a good stir until it is nice and smooth, then divide the mix between two bowls. Add the cocoa powder to one of the bowls and mix well until it's a nice chocolatey colour.

Take your tin and grease with a bit of butter, then line with baking parchment to stop it sticking. Take a spoonful of your original sponge mix and drop it in, then drop a spoonful of the chocolate mix and drop it on top. Repeat, alternating between the two mixes, until you've used all your cake batter.

Stick it in the oven at 180 degrees for 25-30 minutes. Don't open the door before 25 mins because it might sink (sad!) but after that it'll be safe to stick a metal skewer in and check it - if the skewer comes out clean it's ready so whip it out the oven and let it cool.

Ta-do! Now, when the cake is cool, turn it onto a board and then wash the tin. Repeat the whole cake making process again (this is a big cake!) and then when that's done let that cool too.

When the cakes are ready, stack them with some jam and icing in between, and  then carefully carve the two bottom corners off and then shape the cakes so it vaguely resembles a steno machine. You want the shape to look like this, but don't worry if it looks a bit rough because it'll be covered in icing anyway:

Carefully carve a rectangle shape across the bottom half of the cake (for the keys) and then dig out the sponge to make a little gap. We will stick keys in there later.

Now for the fun bit! Take a packet of sugar paste (I used this: http://www.tesco.com/groceries/Product/Details/?id=252623113) and knead it with your hands until it is nice and pliable. Put a small piece aside, and then add a few drops of food colour to the icing and knead until the colour is nice and consistent, and as deep as you like, add more if it needs to be darker. I use food colour paste as it's a lot less sticky than the liquid ones you tend to find at the supermarket. You can buy it online and it lasts ages (I use Sugarflair, because it's amazing http://www.cake-stuff.com/paste-gel-icing-colourings-c-7.html)

Note: if you want to make a black machine, you may have to pre-buy some black icing because it is quite tricky to get a nice colour when you do it yourself (comes out a bit grey!) but you can get that online easy-peasy.

Now cover the cake in jam - all over the top and a bit on the sides. When the icing is ready, roll it out with a rolling pin (and lots of icing sugar so it doesn't stick!) and drape over the cake. Smooth the icing carefully into the gap you've left for the keys and then down the sides. Flatten the excess icing against the surface you are decorating on, then use a sharp knife to run round the edge. This will give a nice clean finish. Save the excess icing and add some more food colour to make a deeper colour.

Use the deeper coloured icing to add detail to your steno machine - I used it to go round the keypad and make the screen. I made the keys out of pre-bought black icing, which I rolled into small balls and placed into the dip left in the sponge. I also used black icing for other little details on the side of the machine, screws etc. You can stick extra 'screws' over any errors, if you've made some!

Take your little bit of leftover white icing and roll it into a long rectangle, attach to the back of the machine as the paper.

Mix up a bit of buttercream icing (2 oz unsalted butter, 8 oz icing sugar, splash of milk) and colour it dark brown. Put into a piping bag and go around the keypad area and then add some line detail to the top of the machine.

Finally, use a black food colour pen (or a small tube of black writing icing which you can buy in most supermarkets) to write a message on the screen, and add any other final details you want. You can also write a message on the paper if you so wish, but best to do this before it goes onto the cake as it'll be easier to write on it when it's flat.

Voila! Steno cake! I put a bit of edible glitter over the paper as well, because I had some! Just colour a bit of icing grey, brush with edible glue and then scatter the glitter. When it has dried, place it over the paper and use two small circles of grey icing to attach.