Prepare the biscuit dough first as it needs to chill. Cream together the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Add the egg and vanilla and beat in until smooth. Sieve in the flour and mix until a dough is formed.

Wrap the dough in cling film or beeswax paper and chill for 30 minutes in the fridge.

Prepare two baking trays by lining with baking parchment/greaseproof paper and set aside.

Once chilled, tip the dough out onto a clean and floured surface. Flour your hands and the dough and fold in on itself a few times. Roll out with a rolling pin until about an inch in thickness.

Cut out your decoration shapes: the outside of the hobbit hole, the steps, the gate, the bench and so on. Make sure to cut out gaps for the two windows. I used the base of a piping nozzle to do this, as I did for the pebbled path stones. You may have to keep bringing the dough together and rolling it out again: do so as needed.

Carefully place the biscuits on the baking trays, making sure to arrange the bigger/thicker biscuits on one tray and smaller ones on the other.

Chill in the fridge for 1 hour.

Whilst your biscuits are chilling, make your cakes.

Weigh out your eggs in their shells and get as close to 400g as possible. Weigh out the rest of your ingredients to the specific weight you get i.e. 411g.

Make the base cake mix first. Cream together the sugar and butter until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time and beat in until combined.

Add the lemon zest and flour and mix just until combined.

Divide between the two square tins evenly.

Repeat steps 10 to 13 to make the sculpting cake mix and spoon into the 6 inch deep cake tin.

Leave to cool in the tins for around 10 minutes and then transfer upside down onto a wire rack to cool completely.

If the biscuits have been chilled for 1 hour, take them from the fridge and bake for around 15 minutes until golden and crisp. Carefully add the halves of the boiled sweet to your window gaps after around 10 minutes of your biscuits baking. If particularly thin or small, then check after 10 minutes.

Leave to cool on the trays.

While everything is cooling, make your buttercream.

Beat together the sugar and butter. It will be dry but will loosen when you add the rest of the ingredients.

Add the elderflower cordial and lemon juice and beat in. Take a few tbsp of buttercream and split into smaller bowls for your different coloured flowers: one bowl per colour.

Place the first cooled square cake on a cake stand/plate/cake board and lay over a generous amount of buttercream from the large bowl.

Place the second layer over and do the same with slightly less buttercream in order to create a crumb coat.

Cut the round cake in half and use one half to begin building the hobbit hole. Cut a chunk off the other half and cut into columns. Smother with buttercream and curve over the ends of the hobbit hole so make it wider. Add a back if necessary.

Use the rest of the cake to build a slight hill on the left side of the cake, in front of the hobbit hole. You can do this in layers, using the buttercream as glue. Make sure to leave the right side of the cake uncovered.

Chill in the fridge while you colour the rest of your buttercream. Add the green to the large bowl of remaining buttercream and mix well.

Add your chosen flower colours to each small bowl and mix well.

Add the green buttercream to a piping bag with the grass nozzle if using.

Do the same for the other colours, with the very ends of the piping bags snipped off.

If it’s particularly warm out, keep your buttercream/piping bags in the fridge until you are ready to use.

Retrieve your cake from the fridge and begin adding the biscuit decorations ever so gently. Use the buttercream as glue. Use a small knife to make indents into the sponge in order to press the gate and hobbit hole front into the cake for stability: the biscuits may break if you try to force them in without an indent.

The front of the hobbit hole will likely not press flush against the cake. If this is the case, do not worry as you will be able to disguise this with the grass buttercream.

Pipe or spread the green buttercream across the entire top of the exposed sponge and sculpted cake to create the grass. Use the buttercream to join the hobbit hole cake and biscuit, filling in any gaps.

Place in the fridge to chill.

Mould any of the smaller details you are adding like the doorknob and smoking pipe.

After the cake has chilled for a few minutes in the fridge, retrieve it and paint the decorations you are planning on painting: the door, brickwork, sign if doing so etc.

Using edible glue, add the doorknob or paint it on with food colouring. Also use edible glue to build the bench and allow it to set.

Add the steps and any other biscuit features over the grass. Pipe the flowers on top of the grass: simple dots give a great effect!

Chill the cake again.

To finish, paint any further decorations with food colouring, like the window frames using black food colouring.

Make sure to chill even when finished.

Marvel at your fantastical masterpiece!