Tuesday, March 01, 2011

it's the thought that counts.. right?

Proud mummy moment, kind of...

the kids insisted on making me a birthday cake! and not just any cake, a proper themed cake from the original Women's Weekly Birthday Cake book...
an "Old Woman who lived in a shoe" cake. y'know, the one who had so many children she didn't know what to do? yeah. hmph.

anyway, a certain father who was roped into help, on account of children being too young to bake unassisted, was quite convinced that it would be fine to leave cake baking & decorating til around 4.30pm. I can imagine what seasoned cake decorators are thinking right about now...

So they toddled off to the supermarket in search of ingredients & decorations, perhaps losing sight of their vision (goal and possibly eyesight) along the way..

it was a hot day for making buttercream icing that is supposed to function as adhesive AND cladding... and there wasn't much (any) time to let the cake cool before icing it anyway...

and the lolly selection didn't prove particularly useful when it came to authenticity...

ummm yeah-
any sensible woman with too many children is bound to have a couple of sharks guarding the perimeter right?! and a nice brown moat...??!

ah bless.. :-)

luckily i live by the mantra "if it tastes good (and doesn't involve killing anything), then who cares!!" and it did, so yay! and it's the first birthday cake they've made for me, so it's extra special... and uhhh.. memorable too ;-)


on a slightly more unadulterated note- another cakey effort recently was lexi's birthday cake for kindy... the teachers appreciate it if the cakes aren't too over-the-top and, especially, full of artificial colourings & plastered with sugar!

so i made my favourite vegan lemon & coconut cake-
i decorated it by placing some star-shaped stickers around it, sprinkling with icing sugar, then removing the stars :-) i thought it looked quite effective, and with the minimum of fuss!

whenever i make this recipe i also make a tiny star cake as a RAOK, so this one i made to match for lexi's kindy teachers as a thank you-
cute huh?

2 comments:

TheOtherSarah said...

I love it! A certain father around here has said he'll make a WW birthday cake after a certain burnt out mama said no blardy way... I'll keep you posted ;-)

Anne (I should be sleeping) said...

Wow! So many things to say.
Firstly, the WW Birthday Cake book is an institution in my family ... well actually, mostly just to me. So props for the attempt, which I think looks both well-decorated and delicious!
Secondly, the RAOK cake is so cute.
Lastly, I'm so stealing your icing sugar star idea :)