RECEPTION Cake to Make 3887 views

Give your reception a touch of vintage chic with Eric Lanlard's 1950s Glamour Cake from his new book published by Hamlyn. Follow the step-by-step instructions, but allow plenty of time to practise chocolate rolling.

A striped extravaganza, the Glamour cake involves quite a bit of expertise and practise in rolling the different colour strips of chocolate together - but the end result is spectacular.

You'll need: three cakes (8cm, 10cm and 15cm diameter), 850g or white chocolate ganache, 750g of white modelling chocolate, 250g of dark modelling chocolate. To assemble the cake: 25cm cake drum, 8cm and 10cm cake card, 6 dowel rods, rolling pin, ruler, small sharp knife, florists' pins, 15mm wide cream ribbon and edible glue.

1. Coat the drum with white chocolate ganache. Position the largest cake in the centre and transer the smaller cake to the appropriate cards. Use dowel rods to stack the cakes. Roll out a strip of white modelling chocolate 1.5cm thick, 11cm wide and long enough to go round the largest cake. Roll out a strip of dark modelling chocolate 1cm thick, 11cm wide and to the same length as the white strip. Cut it into 11 parallel strips, each 1cm wide.

2. Using a little cooled boiled water to hold them in place, arrange the dark chocolate strips on the white strip, leaving a gap of 2cm between each strip and from each long edge.

3. Carefully roll out the strip to 5mm thick, making sure that you keep the stripes as even and straight as possible.

4. Cut the strips so that they are 10.5cm wide and long enough to cover each tier.

5. Coat the cakes with white chocolate ganache and cover the cakes with the stripes, joining them at the back with a little cooled boiled water.

6. Use the remaining icing to make the bows. Making sure the stripes are aligned, use a template to cut out a horizontal piece 6-3cm and two vertical tails, each 2.5-11.5cm.

7. Fold in the end of the bow towards the centre and fold in the side towards the tip. Fold in the sides and pinch the centre.

8. Attach the central piece to the bow, wrapping it around so that the join is underneath.

9. Cut V shapes from the bottom of the tails. Curl the tails slightly and attach them to the top edge of each strip around the cake.

10. Attach the bows to the cake with melted white chocolate, holding them in place with florists' pins until they are dry. Fasten ribbon around the drum, securing the ends in place with glue. Don't forget to remove the pins before slicing the cake.

For more fabulous cake recipes, Glamour Cakes (£16.99) by Eric Lanlard is published by Hamlyn.