When I arrived home after a weekend DofE expedition there was a present waiting for me in the kitchen. It was from Samuel, a young friend across the lane who I occasionally bake for. It was a jar of dinosaur sprinkles. Was it a present or was it a hint? Either way, it clearly needed a cake, so here it is.

Makes: 15 fairly big slices, or 20 medium, or 24 smallish. It’s up to you.

Time: Could be all done in about an hour + cooling time before adding the topping

Level: Quite easy

Equipment: A deep-sided baking tin about 20 x 30cm (8” x 12”)

Cake ingredients

250g/9oz butter or baking spread
250g/9oz caster sugar (white or golden)
4 large eggs
250g/9oz self-raising flour
pinch of salt
green, yellow and blue food colours (I like the Coloursplash range)
150g/5½oz white chocolate pieces
Dinosaur sprinkles or any multi-coloured sprinkles

Topping ingredients

100g/3½oz butter
100g/3½oz full fat cream cheese
250g/9oz icing sugar
100g/3½oz white chocolate
1 tsp vanilla extract (optional)
dinosaur sprinkles

Method

1. Grease the tin and line it with baking parchment. Have at least two opposite sides raised high enough to lift out the bake. Turn oven on to reach 180C/ fan 160C/ 350F/ Gas 4.

2. Cream together the butter and sugar. Add the eggs, one by one and beat well, ideally with an electric mixer. If the mixture appears to be splitting add a tsp of flour.

3. Now – by hand – gently fold in the self-raising flour with a pinch of salt.

4. Divide the mixture into three bowls* and colour each one using the three food colourings. Stir equal amounts of white chocolate pieces and sprinkles into each mixture.

*I had slightly less in the “blue” bowl as this darker colour could have been too dominant.

5. Put different coloured “blobs” randomly in the tin and gently swirl them using a chopstick or something similar, but don’t overdo this. Level the mixture and tap the tin on a work surface to release air and to fill the corners. Bake for around 30 minutes. Test by inserting a skewer into the middle. It will come out clean and dry if the cake is baked.

6. While it cools in the tin, make the topping. Melt the white chocolate over a bain marie. Beat the butter and cream cheese until creamy then sift over the icing sugar. Stir gently at first then beat more vigorously. Pour in the melted white chocolate and vanilla extract (if using) then beat some more. Put it in the fridge for a while to firm up.

7. If you want a flat surface you could invert the cake (I did). Cover the cake with the topping then cut into pieces. Once cut add the sprinkles*. This way you avoid cutting into the sprinkles.

*I actually put them on individually to make sure each piece had all three colours, which makes me either a painstaking baker or just a pain, full stop (period).

Gallery 1

Gallery 2

Gallery 3

NB In case you were wondering, the reason it looks oddly cut in gallery 3 is because I wanted to give Samuel and his mum 4 large pieces then cut the rest into smaller pieces to take into school.

I hope you have a go at this unusual, but lovely cake. (If you don’t have any dinosaur sprinkles just use any sprinkles, but change the name to avoid confusing people.) Click this link for more tasty traybake recipes. Here are some of my personal favourites that I think you’ll love too:

Blueberry and Orange Flapjack