Tennis Court

It’s been a pretty busy week – cake orders have been pouring in, the kids’ school broke up for the spring holidays and I had to prepare two birthday parties for my daughter – one at her school and one at home.

Meanwhile, the Tennis Court cake I had to bake for Friday was crowned “order of the week”.  It was the first time I created a tennis court and because my technical tennis knowledge is a little lacking, I first had to do some research…

The base lines and racquets were made from chocolate.

Happy birthday Jessica – I hope you and your tennis-loving friends loved eating the cake as much as I loved creating it!

May the Force be with You`

Today is my godson, Jared’s 6th birthday.  It feels just like yesterday when I met him in hospital…  And while I had planned to take the weekend off and not accept any bookings, there was no way I could not bake him a birthday cake.

So last night, while crying buckets over Benjamin Button, I decorated Jared’s Star Wars cake and couldn’t believe my luck:  the decorating gods were definitely on my side.  I try to steer clear of printed icing sheets, because you never know how the end product may be affected by changing weather, humidity, curious little fingers or a slight bump in-transit.  But the cake looked awesome and I couldn’t wait for Saturday.

But dammit… the decorating gods must have had a previous engagement because the bumpy ride to the West Coast Village Spur created a tiny crack in the picture.   I panicked.  I hyperventilated.  I almost cried.  But luckily I could fix the damage at the venue and the cracked appeared to be nothing more than a lightning bolt.

I’m sure people thought I was a little nuts when I kept on checking in on the cake and wouldn’t allow anybody to even do so much as breathe on the cake!  So I quickly jumped up to move the cake when the time came to sing “Happy Birthday”. Unfortunately one of the other moms was a little quicker on the draw and picked up the cake causing the picture to tear further!

I FREAKED!  But mostly on the inside.

Again, one quick fix and a Happy Birthday song  later, Jared blew out the candles and the demolition began.

The cake was YUM-MEE!  What more can I say?!?  Just another day at the office…

Castle Cake

The Challenge:  A pink castle cake for a little girl who loves Polly Pocket.

The Result:  A pink castle, featuring Polly & friends, as well as back-garden waterfall.

A different kind of cake

Whenever I take my kids to a birthday party, I always take a peek at the choice of birthday cake.  And more often than not the parent opted for a beautifully crafted sugar paste birthday cake, which is a truly gorgeous sight, but that nobody eats.

You see… whenever I bake, my measure of success is how quickly my creation is eaten…  but that’s not the moral of this story.

When my son turned four this year, I started planning his cake and had so many ideas.  But in the end I listened to my little guy and made him his special Bugs-Jelly-Cake.

A different kind of cake

And despite the fact that I really wanted to make him a treasure chest or recreate a scene from Cars, I knew that he probably wouldn’t eat it… and isn’t that what being the birthday boy is all about?

So I made several layers of jelly – patiently waiting for each layer to set before adding the next layer and the bugs in between.  It took me two days.  And when he blew out the candles his “cake” was served to all the guests with custard.

It just goes to show:  You don’t have to bake a cake to make your kid happy on his birthday.  We just need to listen to what they – not we – REALLY want.

Scuba cake

While birthday boy was treated to a diving experience at the V&A Waterfront in Cape Town, I was tasked to bake a “kiddie cake”, capturing sun, sea and scuba.