Monthly Archives: May 2021

Saturday Cake Day – Happy Birthday Me!

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On my actual birthday, my other half decided I shouldn’t have to make my own birthday cake, and so he and my boys chose one from the local supermarket. In my humble opinion, it was a tad dry, but I shan’t hold that against them. My youngest helped blow out the candles (he’s a little obsessed with that) and managed not to spit across the whole thing. Bonus.

Compared to last year’s birthday in a full lockdown, this year my birthday fell the week restrictions were lifted and I ate inside a restaurant for the first time in over a year! Quite the surreal experience. I should also have been able to have 30 in the garden, with a BBQ planned, but I didn’t get so lucky with the weather. Blooming rain. but these cupcakes were made with such things in mind, as I figured cupcakes could more easily be given away at the door or saved for another day. My oldest is rainbow and unicorn mad, and seeing as he has a winter birthday, I made this tower with him in mind–something for him while the rest in the family all do our birthday’s within one star sign.

I also can’t resist showing off all the books I have piling up to read, along with a few other pressies. These days most of my reading is done via audiobook, whether through Audible or BorrowBox, but come Birthdays and Christmases I put a little list together to get a few physical books. I’m also enjoying my nerdy T-shirts. I’m sure most can recognise Grogu (or at least Baby Yoda), but for reference, the other is the Wanderer from Shadow of the Colossus (so I got two Shadow of the something presents!), which I may or may not have played through 4 times in a month….

So in conclusion, Happy Birthday me. I’ve got lots of reading to do now!

Saturday Cake Day – An Unexpected Wedding

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Here’s to another working week over and another Saturday Cake Day. This week I want to be a little sentimental with the cake I show off. Pandemic aside, it’s been a tough few years for my family. First, we lost my mother-in-law, then just as she passed her husband was also diagnosed with leukemia. Sadly, he lost his battle with cancer a year later (almost to the day), just as the UK went into lockdown. We’ve still not been able to have a funeral. Then, as if on cue, my father was diagnosed with bowel cancer. At first it was all very treatable, he had surgery and chemotherapy, but this January we found out it was terminal. Luckily, he has passed the year marker and has broken the cycle my family seemed to be stuck in. Though there are a lot of ups and downs, lots of hospital visits, he’s still going strong. 

Now I’ve started this somewhat miserable Saturday Cake Day with a few negatives, so you can see why I choose to focus on the positives! After about fifteen years of being engaged, my dad and his fiancee decided to finally tie the knot. So I went into full wedding mode!

With pandemic restrictions we weren’t allowed to attend the wedding, but we got dressed up to join the ceremony and speeches online (I even taught my Grandma how to use Facebook video calls so she could see her son getting married). The (very loose) theme of the day was navy and rose gold, so I made a foil lined prosecco cake. I would normally stuff that sort of cake with berries, but as it had to travel and be kept fresh for a week before the wedding, I decided to avoid this as I wasn’t certain how well the fruit would freeze. 

A pandemic wedding

Even though the wedding had four in-person guests with the reception being held in my dad and step-mum’s living room, I still made them place names, a cake topper, and with the boys we made cans to attached to car (personalising each can from different family members). 

The wedding went well, though was a little hard to hear and my grandma couldn’t work out how to mute or stop commenting throughout the ceremony! We had guests from Spain, Greece, and Australia, the sort of worldwide wedding only the pandemic can create. 

Congratulations to my dad and Tracy, married 11th March 2021!

And no, this isn’t the Leaning Tower of Wedding Cake, you’ll need to be patient for that one!

Saturday Cake Day – Dinosaur Cake

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I know it’s been a while since my last cake day. In my defence there has been a pandemic, a flour shortage, and–closer to home–building work taking my kitchen out of action for a while. But it’s back and ready to get your appetites going. As well as my recent exploits, I’ll add those I’ve created previously (do look out for ‘The Leaning Tower of Wedding Cake!).

Kicking off Saturday Cake Day will be a fault line dinosaur cake! Fault line cakes are often sparkly creations, but I took the love idea and turned it into digging for bones! The bones were created using white modelling chocolate, and given that it was a very hot day, it was sticky business. But it had the desired effect, as my boys enjoyed finding and eating the dino skeleton.

I was fairly convinced I’d get the fault line wrong and it would all go to pot, but in the end it turned out the hardest bit was trying to get handfuls of sprinkles to stick to the buttercream icing (curse you gravity!). I made have cheated and used toy dinosaurs as the cake toppers, but there were well appreciated, regardless. ‘Lophus’ (Parasaurolophus to the rest of us) was a particular favourite of the birthday boy.

Hope you’ve enjoyed the Saturday Cake Day update! Keep and eye out for more 🙂