It's coming home! Juliet Sears' epic 'snackadium'
If you’re planning a family gathering tomorrow night to watch the big game, Juliet Sear is making sure you score a winner with your guests.She’s showing you how to recreate Wembley at home, by building your own stadium out of snacks… AKA a 'snackadium'! It has to be seen to be believed.
'Snackadium'
Build to your requirement
Ingredients
You will needA selection of cardboard boxes or cereal boxes for your stadium seating, plus extra glasses and boxes for plinths
Cocktail sticks and wooden skewers
Baking parchment to line your boxes
A selection of sweet and savoury buffet foods and snacks of your choice
Football pitch cake
1 x disposable foil baking tray (we used a 30cm x 41cm sized tray)
600g butter
600g caster sugar
12 eggs
1 tbsp vanilla bean paste
600g self raising flour
1 tsp baking powder Buttercream icing
300g unsalted butter, softened
600g icing sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
Green food colouring
*You will need a plastic piping bag for the football pitch markings
*Juliet’s tip for the cake: We made a large football pitch cake, but you can scale down the quantities here by using this method. Fill whichever tray you are using with water to just over half way full, and then weigh the water to give you the total quantity of batter you need.
Method
1. To make your stadium come to life, you will need to create the seating around your foil tray or baking sheet which will be your football pitch.
2. You could use box files or cereal boxes or any cardboard boxes cut into the same shape as your box file.
3. You can use a selection of glasses or food boxes or cans of food to create shelves inside your box files to give you a tiered seating stadium effect. Once you have this shape you can then arrange them around your football pitch cake and start filling with your favourite snacks and sweets.
4. To make the football pitch cake: cream the butter and sugar together, add the eggs and vanilla bean paste and beat together well.
5. Sift about a third of the flour and baking powder onto the mix and gently fold. Repeat twice more, folding through very gently to keep the air in the mix.
6. Pour into your baking tray and bake in the oven at 180c. Bake for approximately 45-50 minutes for a 30cm.41cm tray. If you are using a different sized tray then use a skewer and insert it into the centre of your cake, right to the base. When you pull it out, it should come away clean.
7. To make your buttercream icing, cream the butter, vanilla and then gradually add the sugar, beating well after each addition until incorporated, pale and fluffy. Reserve 3 tablespoons of the buttercream icing for your football pitch markings - place into a piping bag and snip a small hole ready to ice the cake. Tint the remaining icing green with a green food colouring or your choice.
8. Ice the cake with your green buttercream icing then use white icing to pipe the football pitch markings on top.
9. To serve: Place the football pitch cake into the centre off the table, arrange your stadium seating around the edge and fill any gaps with snacks or sweets as you need them. Then tuck in!
10. It’s coming home!