This is the easiest cake in the world to make,but you must be neat and patient.
You will need a big box of liquorice allsorts,cake and butter icing,and a small sharp knife.

I built the cake in three pieces; the bottom part needs to be a bit smaller than the second storey,and the roof has sloping sides. Butter icing will glue the pieces together.
Either make the cake or buy blocks of cake.
Use a spatula to cover the structure with a generous layer of butter icing. 


Now sort your liquorice allsorts.
Take the square ones apart carefully,and put the different coloured layers on separate plates.
They will be cut into bricks.
The black liquorice pieces will make the timbers of your tudor house; the round coconut ones,and the black tubes with cream in,are threaded on cocktail sticks to make the chimneys. There was one chimney for each candle.
The thatch was thick butter icing,forked for texture.

Just press the bricks firmly into the icing. Mix the colours for effect.
I had a hard time finding edible bears,as you can see.
They should be different sizes,of course - Father,Mother and Baby bear...

Some sweets are particularly useful when decorating cakes - liquorice allsorts were perfect for this one!
I once used sweet bananas for tusks on an elephant cake,and red liquorice strings for wire on the telephone cake.
When Mary had a pirate ship, I made a treasure-chest cake,and had fun choosing sweets for jewels-there are lots.

As you can see, the cottage is not difficult to make.You can use your imagination for the rest.

I put sweet milk bottles by the door, and used green lollipops stuck into toasted coconut sweets for trees. The path, too, was made of toasted coconut.

I have had the best time in the world,and put on a considerable amount of weight,while making cakes for my grandchildren!