So who’s excited for another Saturday Cake Day? My tastebuds a salivating at the thought.

Today’s one is a special cake, but one that comes with all my usual whoopsies and kerfuffles. So to begin, I’ll set the scene.

Way way waaaay back in 2011, I married Alex. And being the economical skinflints that we are, we had a team of friends help throughout the day with tasks such as photography and the band. Enter Alex’s friend Gary on the drums. And Alex’s sister (also my bridesmaid) Gabby had a falling out with her plus one a day or two before the wedding, so instead she brought best friend Claire. After a touch of meddling from Gabby and I, a relationship began and in December 2018 the pair were married! They’re now expecting their first baby in November.

Following the new trend of a Baby Gender Reveal (I’m sure this wasn’t a thing when I was pregnant–last year!) Claire asked me to make them a cake that would either be pink or blue when they cut it open, revealing the sex of their baby. Is this a thing to everyone’s tastes? I don’t know, I suppose I was sceptical when I saw hints of this trend appearing on the internet, but actually it was lovely. The perfect excuse to gather all your family together and celebrate the coming of a new baby. With delicious cake!

So here’s my fun journey…

If you read my previous cake blog–the Practice Cake–you’ll have seen that my first venture into cake dying wasn’t the best. This time I bought super powerful dye, the kind so strong I can confirm it will change the colour of your poop. Had my baby, who’d had a few cake offcuts to much that morning, decided to soil himself mid party, guests would probably have had a fairly good indication as to the mystery colour inside the cake. So, yeah, this dye worked.

This cake was to be two layers, the biggest I’ve made yet. To give some indication of the size, I used 1kg of flour and 16 eggs. And it turns out this may have been too much, as I had a little mishap in the oven…

So I wanged a baking tray under it and snacked on what spilled out! Oh and that little cake tin is what I scraped off the spoon after Alex told me he was hungry!

As a topper for the cake I decided to try dying four white roses (two pink and two blue). How hard could that be? I’d watched loads of youtube tutorials… Well, after ordering the flowers, apparently rain and a bank holiday in Holland meant my roses didn’t arrive. But luckily the florists were really helpful. Advised me on nice white flowers for a cake topper and I came home and put them in coloured water for 24 hours.

(Side note, last time I used this florist when making the bouquet for Gabby’s wedding, the woman I dealt with there was really unhelpful. Quite grumpy and did not even act sympathetic when I explained the reasons for a last minute wedding. Maybe she was cheesed I’d decided to make the bouquet myself? Either way, I’m glad I gave them a second chance. The different woman this time was so nice.)

But they remained white. Worse things have happened.

Icing this cake I went back to the Culpitt brand icing I used on the Pink Marble Cake. I figured it had creased because I was inexperienced, and as my second cake–the Marble Whale–had been a success I decided to revert to the cheap stuff. Mistake. It really creased. Luckily the design I used was forgiving and I was able to hide the cock ups.

And so here’s the cake…

Inside, the cake was Victoria sponge with my less sweet buttercream and white oreo cookies (because cakes aren’t cakes without biscuits stuffed inside them!). I keep modifying tough cookies buttercream recipe to see if I can get it working for me. Still not completely successful. I decided to do it as accurate to the recipe as possible… well that 12 minute recipe took me two hours… something’s not working. And to top it off, even using the exact same amounts as the Marble Whale Cake, which resulted in me throwing away half the mix, I almost didn’t have enough. No idea what happened there.

Claire and Gary did an amazing job of decorating the party. My boys were pretty wild with the amount of sugar they got at, especially the three-year-old who was at prime height to reach up to the counter and steal cakes and biscuits!

And for those who want to see, here’s a video of the happy couple cutting a slice!

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Cutting the gender reveal cake. It’s a boy!!! 💙💙💙 Congratulations @claire_fleming_2018 and @rabc1984 #kitchandtea #cake #pink #blue #genderreveal #genderrevealcake #genderrevealparty #itsaboy #flowers #babyfleming #party #buffet #marbleeffect #marbleeffectcake #hexangon #porkpie #whiteroses #gyp #gypsophilia #caketopper

A post shared by Kitch and Tea (@kitch_and_tea) on Jun 26, 2019 at 2:34am PDT

It’s a BOY!!!