The joy of cake...

Bunny’s birthday is fast approaching – 10 years old! – and party plans are underway. Cinema theme this year, so I’m sorting out the cake.

I love love love making birthday cakes! It’s always a secret what I’ll do; I scour my baking books and the internet for inspiration. The fun is seeing such happy faces, the surprise “wow” moment when the cake comes in with candles lit.

This was the treasure chest cake when Bunny was 4 and wanted a pirate birthday party. It’s a two-layered yellow cake, with enough sweets on top to send pre-schoolers bouncing off the walls. The sand is crushed digestive biscuits (US: graham crackers). What a hoot!

These cupcakes were from last year’s panda-themed party (her favourite animal, plus turquoise, her fave colour). Based on a design from Hello Cupcake!, a terrifically fun cookbook. Base cupcake topped with crushed Oreo cookies for fur, mini cupcake turned on its side for the panda heads, Cheerio ears covered in black buttercream frosting...it’s important that they taste as good as they look!

But my all-time favourite birthday cake for Bunny was when she turned 8

Lovely, isn’t it? Oh wait, let me show you a better angle

 

Yum!

The rainbow cake was the best surprise I ever pulled on Bunny. She really had no idea, poor thing thought I was so tired looking after her little sister that I just made a plain cake! I’ll never forget how her eyes lit up when the first slice slid out...

This was by far the most fun I’ve ever had baking. It was very involved, it took ages to make, but I enjoyed every step. I had a huge amount of cake batter to mix, then divided equally into six bowls and dyed rainbow hues. I baked two layers at a time, hoping they rose evenly, that the colour turned out, that nothing burned! And that it all was finished in time for me to hide it and fetch her from school...

Then I made a year’s supply of buttercream frosting to stick it all together. Thank goodness for my Kitchenaid; my mountain frosting was whipped into cloud texture by the mighty pink mixer!

I have never been so completely happy while baking. Perhaps it was the nature of the cake, the jolly rainbow colours, happy. Perhaps it was because I baked it with love in every step, happy happy.

(BTW, you can get your own jaunty cake bunting here, made by the lovely Jooles!)

This year’s cake will be a more silly offering to go with the cinema theme, again inspired by Hello Cupcake! – can you guess?

Chrissie x