How to Make a Dalek Cake

Kay celebrated the the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who by making a Dalek cake. Sort of. Extermi-cake. Extermi-cake.

To celebrate the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who, Lakeland sold silicone Dalek cake tins. Exciting news, as I’m sure you’ll agree.

What the Dalek cake should have looked like, thanks to the £16.99 Dalek cake mould from Lakeland. No spoilers – but it didn’t look like this.

I figured, looking at it in the shop, that this would be a worthwhile investment. And, with my other half’s birthday in less than two days, I could use it to make the most awesome cake ever.

“It’s… it’s easy to do, right?” I asked the cashier hopefully.

“Oh yes, dead easy. I’d say a monkey could do it. And the best thing is, it’s silicone, so nothing gets stuck to the pan!” she told me enthusiastically, handing me my change.

Excellent news. I would soon become the Davros of my humble kitchen. Or so I thought.

Reading the back of my brand-spanking-new £16.99 baking tin, I discovered that an 8 egg mixture was required to make a Dalek cake. A lot of bloody eggs, if you ask me, but there we have it. However, as I get home at 8pm and start work around 6am, I don’t have a lotta time on my hands, so I decided to cheat. Think instant cake mix. No, Devil’s Food Cake mix. And, to make it up to the necessary 8 egg mixture, I bought three boxes.

Can I get a high-pitched violin noise, to signal impending doom please?

I mixed my cake mix up with olive oil, water and the required eggs, poured it carefully into my tin and watched gleefully as the thick, brown mixture filled it almost to the top. Sure, it was heavy (and wobbly – bloody flexible silicone!) to lift, but I managed to haul it into the oven, ease it onto the middle shelf and leave it for the required 25 minutes. Just enough time to pop to the shop and buy some icing.

Except, while I was out, I got a very strange text message from my mother.

“When you back? Cake giving me concern. Don’t know whether to kill it or turn it off.”

I made my way home to absolute devastation.

The cake mix had risen (I hadn’t factored in the rising bit) and poured out of the baking dish, seeping into the oven below and out through the cracks in the doors. It wasn’t cooked – the mixture inside was still raw – and it showed no signs of stopping. Worse still, I was out of cake mix. This was my one-shot cake – and, like a true Dalek, it seemed intent on murdering us all.

I moved to turn off the oven but my dad grabbed my hand: “No. You must leave it. You tripled the mixture, so you must triple the cook time.”

Leave it? It had gone AMOK – but, at his bequest, I decided to let the Dalek live – for now. It was 10pm. I was due to be up a lot longer than I had intended. Worse still, when I contacted best gal pal (and amateur Delia Smith) Flik, she had very little advice for me.

“Only you,” she said, “could make a cake that wants to eat you.”

I pleaded with her, explaining my predicament: “It’s huge, Flik. It’s as tall as… well, it goes from my fingertips to my elbow – and it’s still rising.”

“I’m crying with laughter. Tears. Abort. Abort mission. Remove it now. RETREAT.”

Little did she know, eh? I couldn’t abort now – not with my father watching me like a hawk, worrying about the wasted eggs. I was the hapless scientist who created a monster. It WAS Frankencake – and I felt a weird, morbid fascination to see what would happen next. It had to stay in there. Come hell or high cake mix, it had to stay in there.

Time passed. What felt like hours later, I crept to the oven and peered in. The mixture had finally settled, but the cake was twice the height of the original tin. And, of course, there was plenty of excess cake all over the sides and floor. Damn it all to hell.

Yet, after I carefully trimmed away the bottom and flipped it over, a miracle had taken place.

Oh yes. It was alive. It. Was. ALIVE! I really WAS the Davros of the baking world – and all that remained to do was decorate it.

Art has always been my thaaang. Using a mix of blue and grey icing, white milk chocolate buttons and silver birthday candles, I had soon sculpted a pretty awesome looking Dalek. And, when we finally presented it to Tom and were allowed to eat it, it actually tasted… absolutely amazing. Like a big chocolate muffin, hellbent on universal domination and mass destruction.

Extermi-cake. Extermi-cake.