Ingredients

Step by step

1. Lightly grease 2 x 20cm round cake tins and line the bases with baking paper. Preheat the oven to 180°C, fan 160°C, gas 4.
2. Place the butter and syrup in a small pan and heat gently until the butter has just melted, remove from the heat then stir in the milk.
3. Sift the flour, baking powder and mixed spice into a medium-sized bowl. Add the eggs, then gradually add the melted mixture, stirring with a wooden spoon until smooth. It will be quite a liquid batter.
4. Pour the mixture into the 2 cake tins so they are both the same depth, then bake for 20-25 minutes until golden brown and firm, and a skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean. Leave to cool in the tin for 5 minutes, then turn the cakes onto a wire rack to cool completely.
5. For the buttercream, place the soft butter in a mixing bowl with the orange zest and juice plus the icing sugar, and beat until smooth. Measure 150g buttercream into a small bowl. Melt the chocolate in a small heatproof bowl over a pan of gently simmering water. When cool, beat this into the 150g buttercream until smooth. Spoon 2 tablespoons of chocolate buttercream into a small piping bag fitted with a fine writing nozzle, then use the rest to sandwich the 2 sponges together.
6. Colour the remaining buttercream yellow or pale orange for the lion’s mane. Spread some over the top and sides of the cake as a thin coating, then place the rest in a piping bag fitted with a 1cm star nozzle.
7. To make the lion face, thinly roll out 20g of the white icing on a work surface dusted with icing sugar and cut out 2 x 3cm circles for eyes. Colour 50g of the white icing dark brown by gradually working in the melted chocolate. Roll out, and cut out 2 x 5cm circles, folding each almost in half and pinching into ear shapes. Cut out 2 x 1cm circles for the pupils, and shape 2 thin sausages for eyebrows, then roll the remaining icing into a ball for the nose. Put all these elements aside.
8. Colour the remaining white icing yellow or orange to match the buttercream for the mane. Make 2 x 20g balls of icing for the lion’s cheeks and set aside. Roll out the rest and cut out a 12cm disc; place in the centre of the sponge as the lion’s face. Press some trimmings together and colour these red to make a tongue. Arrange the features on the circle of icing to create a lion face. Using the yellow or orange buttercream, pipe a ‘mane’ from the edge of the circle to the cake’s outside edge, pulling the icing into a point. Pipe whiskers and dots on the nose with the small bag of chocolate icing.