Drum beat

1.Preheat oven to moderate; grease and line two deep 20cm-round cake pans. Make cakes according to directions on packets, pour into pans, bake in moderate oven about 40 minutes. Stand cakes in pans 5 minutes; turn onto wire racks to cool. Using serrated knife, level cake tops.

2.Beat the butter in a small bowl with an electric beater until the butter is as white as possible. (This will result in a whiter buttercream which will give you better results if colouring it). Gradually beat in half of the sifted icing sugar, then the milk, then the remaining sifted icing sugar.Beat until the butter cream is smooth and spreadable. Keep scraping down the side of the bowl during beating.

3.Tint two-thirds of the butter cream with blue colouring. Sandwich tops of cakes together with a little of the blue butter cream. Place cake on prepared board.

4.Spread top of cake with white butter cream, spread sides with blue butter cream.

5.Wrap some of the red licorice rope around base and top edge of drum (you may need to secure with toothpicks).

6.Cut remaining red licorice rope into four 4cm lengths, place around side of drum. Place Kool Mints in position.

7.On surface dusted with icing sugar, knead soft icing until smooth. Knead red colouring into icing. Roll icing into two balls for the drumsticks, enclose in plastic wrap and stand about 1 hour until firm. If using candy canes, snap off crook of neck, leaving about 12cm length of stick, insert broken ends into balls. Position drumsticks on top of cake just before serving.