Bra and knickers cake

If you're looking to impress the man in your life on his birthday, you can't go far wrong with this ingenious pairing of cake and sexy underwear. And best of all, it's reasonably easy but will earn you a reputation as an amazing cake decorator for months to come.

You'll need:

8"x6" oval sponge cake

750g flesh coloured sugarpaste

250g buttercream

Small cup of royal icing, 1/2 coloured red, 1/2 coloured black

Oval cake board

Piping nozzle (round, #2 sized)

2 small red ribbon bows

Start by placing your oval sponge cake onto a cake board, and use a 2" round cutter to cut out semi circles from the side of the cake. Trim a little bit off the edge so it's perfectly flat, and place on top of the cake. This creates the waist and the boobs.

Next, cover the cake with a thin layer of buttercream. I added melted dark chocolate to mine, and you can vary the flavours according to your own tastes. Make sure you get this as smooth as possible so you have a good base for the sugarpaste to stick to. Put your cake in the fridge for 15 minutes to firm up the buttercream, making it easier to cover.

The next bit is probably the most tricky, and will result in a kitchen tantrum and/or swearing if you don't get your head around it all in advance.

Grease your work surface with a very thin layer of vegetable fat. Sounds strange, but it stops your sugarpaste drying out or sticking to your bench, and it has no smell or taste.

Roll out your sugarpaste to about 5mm thick. Sugarpaste spacers are really useful for getting an even thickness and can be picked up for a few pounds from a cake decorating supplies shop. If you're in the north east, I'd recommend popping into Design a Cake in Washington for this sort of thing. Avoid handling your sugarpaste too much as you don't want it getting too hot and sticky.

Pick up your rolled out paste (I find it easiest to drape it over and between my forearms) and drape it over your cake. Starting with the boobs, make sure that your sugarpaste is sticking to the buttercream and gently ease it down, taking a lot of care to ensure you aren't stretching it.

Continue this for the rest of the cake, using the flat of your hand, paying particular attention to the edges of the cake. When smoothing the sides, always smooth in upwards movements. Otherwise, you'll be pulling down the paste from the top of the cake, which will lead to cracking or end up with the cake poking through the paste.

Trim off the excess paste from the sides with a knife, and use a smoother (again, a really useful piece of caking decorating equipment and dirt cheap) to perfect your covering.

Finally, use the end of a thin paintbrush to lightly press a belly button into the sugarpaste.

Ideally you should leave your covered cake overnight to let the sugarpaste set.

Then, use the black royal icing to pipe on the outline of the bra and knickers.

Next, fill in the outlines with the red royal icing. Don't worry about this bit too much, just pipe little squigles straight onto the cake to create a lacey effect.

Finally, go over the black piping again to make it really stand out. I did backwards-and-forwards squigles over the existing lines to make it more striking. Secure 2 bows with a little dot of royal icing to complete the cake.

Da-daaa! Done and dusted with a few hours work and hardly any stress . If this doesn't earn you a few brownie points, I don't know what will.