Jordy's First Birthday Party, A Prologue on Cake

Wow! I'm writing this after Jordy's first birthday party (his real birthday isn't till the 10th but we thought we'd celebrate a week early as it is a long weekend next week) and we all had a truly lovely time. Birthday boy included!

I'll post more on the birthday party itself in a later post, but I just wanted to capture how much fun we had making his cake. This, despite D's and my differing cake visions (which resulted in a bit of a marital row). Now bear in mind that previous cake decoration attempts were rather harmonious. I mean, just check out our A380 cake from 2005!

I'll elaborate. I basically spent most of yesterday baking - I made three tiers of a 9" round cake, and one loaf tin. With only one round silicone baking tin, that meant baking three times. Used a recipe I gleaned from the superb Betty Crocker cookbook (the retro one that comes in a large ring binder?) - it was the first time I've used Cake Flour instead of plain or self-raising and I think it made all the difference. And the recipe used a surprisingly small amount of butter and sugar so all the more I was for it.

Anyway, baking while looking after a very active baby does have its challenges. Jordy cooperated, sleeping exactly when he was supposed to, and playing nicely while I did the mixing of ingredients. So, what did I do while spending much of the day in the kitchen by a hot oven?

I had cake visions. See, I planned a three-tier round cake, with two little boxy cars made out of rectangles cut from the loaf. Two Volvos on a road if you will, with giant piped letters "Brrm Brrm" below.

So cue this morning, when I am beside myself with excitement at the prospect of making frosting and finally decorating the cake (all bakers know this is the fun part in the whole process). And along comes D with his alternative cake vision.

What the ?#@!, you may so rightly ask. Give the poor mum/baker/coolie her time in the decorating chair! Let her do it her way! But noooo, D came along with his own vision, of shaving the chocolate cake-loaf to resemble one ginormous car that would take up the whole cake, and that just messed with my head y'know?

But guess what? Yes, like an Aesop fable, this story does have a little moral, which is this: Keep an open mind, and the (cake) universe may just fall into place.

So. After whining for a bit, I told myself to let go and voila, two cake visions culminated into one huge, wonderful cake for Jordy's first birthday party!

Presenting you, a little photo-essay entitled: Cake, The Making of.

Firm foundations: Three 9" Round Tiers and a Chocolate Loaf

D sculpting a car out of the chocolate loaf

I requested a little urban hatchback and my wish was granted!

Next, ice the car in a sunny yellow, and notice the innovative use of the better half of an oreo for wheels!

We make a road out of chocolate pebbles and wafer crumbs, and pipe in windscreens, windows and door handles.

We decide at the last minute to make eyes and a face, and I'm told by my nephews that the car turned out looking a lot like Lightning McQueen (and I never saw the movie!)

Last step: Place the ubiquitous "1" candle on cake, place birthday boy in front of cake, cue birthday song on ukelele, and a festive occasion you shall have!