Davebythesea is closing in

huntertitus · Post by **huntertitus** » Mon Oct 16, 2006 8:13 pm

Having had 3 kids I have made at least 3 cakes per year and am now releived that my kids have reached the age when they can bake cakes themselves

(I have to wash everything up naturally)

I was in my opinion the best birthday cake decorator in the world

One of my cakes was a swimming pool with a diving board

Had to do that as a design as the middle of the cake collapsed during the cooking process!

Katharine · Post by **Katharine** » Mon Oct 16, 2006 8:19 pm

Thinking of birthday cakes, I had a deprived childhood - both my brothers were born on 26th July - three years apart. Mother made them just one cake divided down the middle by a line of hundreds and thousands or similar. My birthday is in August and I very rarely had a cake we went to an ice cream parlour on holiday and had a a knickerbocker glory (do they still exist?)

huntertitus · Post by **huntertitus** » Mon Oct 16, 2006 10:25 pm

They do exist in Broadstairs

They also have donkeys on the beach

DavebytheSea · Post by **DavebytheSea** » Mon Oct 16, 2006 10:30 pm

Robin - did you get my pm?

huntertitus · Post by **huntertitus** » Mon Oct 16, 2006 10:38 pm

Just answered it!

cj · Post by cj » Mon Oct 16, 2006 10:50 pm

Making birthday cakes is one of my fortes. I don't have many, so bear with me on this one, please. The first year I was with my husband I made him a Rolei camera cake, complete with knobs, and after that a gingerbread Chartres cathedral with a maze inside and boiled sweet stained glass windows. It was charming in its own way. My brother-in-law's 40th was Sydney Harbour complete with opera house and shark attack. Doing the blood and severed arm was fun. The girls have had pigs with a litter of piglets, cats, teletubbies, ladybirds, fairy castles, punks, poodles, teddies, the list goes on. It's getting difficult now to supercede past winners and of course they expect it every year without fail, but I love doing it. I'm currently obsessed with making muffins. Our favourite du jour is raspberry and white chocolate, but I'm starting to resemble Mrs Cropley (Vicar of Dibley) with unusual combos. How about a savoury version to go with soup - sundried tomato, mozzarella and oregano? Or pumpkin and sausage for Bonfire Night/Hallowe'en?

Scone Lover · Post by **Scone Lover** » Tue Oct 17, 2006 1:09 am

I bow to your skill CJ. Scones and easy sponge cakes are my limit.

I made a battenberg once and have vowed never to do it again

cj · Post by cj » Tue Oct 17, 2006 1:23 am

Scone Lover wrote:I bow to your skill CJ. Scones and easy sponge cakes are my limit.

I made a battenberg once and have vowed never to do it again

There's not a huge amount of skill involved. Just throw a load of butter cream/ready-bought royal icing over a cake, decorate with stuff and the kids love it. Something to do with all the sugar and colours, I imagine! Never attempted a battenberg. Looks far too complicated. Cake is, by far, the most important food group and too overlooked I fear in this age. Homemade obviously. Bought stuff just doesn't have enough oomph.

Scone Lover · Post by **Scone Lover** » Tue Oct 17, 2006 1:31 am

Well when it comes to scones, I have to agree with you. I learned in the south west that the only way to have a scone, is a home made one! Ofcourse thr cream helps too. My family always go on at me to make chocolate cakes too for some reason. I wonder if it is the rum?

Katharine · Post by **Katharine** » Tue Oct 17, 2006 8:00 am

When I read of your birthday cakes I feel even more deprived - which is unfair to my lovely Mum, she is still a good cook just hated decorating cakes! Perhaps it wasn't so easy in the 50s when we were little.

englishangel · Post by **englishangel** » Tue Oct 17, 2006 8:16 am

My Mum is a famouly bad cook, in the Mrs Cropley mould, but she made somne super cakes, I remember a Jack and Jill one when I was about 8. My brothers birthday is 10 days before mine so we often shared a cake too.

As some on here know I am married to a (identical) twin who often had to share with his brother (even their names Barry-Alan as people couldn't tell them apart) so when we had twins we made a vow never to give them a shared cake, or present. We only break this rule for things like Playstation and TV where we buy the joint piece of hardware then buy them individual software.

Ruthie-Baby(old a/c) · Tue Oct 17, 2006 9:34 am

wow!

Once my mum made me a clock birthday cake and then I didn't get a cake for a few years, so I always asked for a clock cake so she couldn't say she couldn't make it.

When I was about 14 I wanted a ban the bomb cake but my father wouldn't let me as he said I didn't really understand what it meant. So I had a star of David instead. Sure there's SOME logic there...?

Oh and once when I was very little my parents won someone else's birthday cake in a raffle. It was for a 6 year old boy who was diabetic and couldn't eat it (makes you wonder why they made it) and it was a normal round cake at the bottom with a foot high icing sculpture of a dragon on the top. Incredible. And delicious. We were eating icing for weeks. I've still got the photo of it somewhere, before we cut into it.

Great Plum · Post by **Great Plum** » Tue Oct 17, 2006 10:08 am

Mum used to make great decorated cakes... I remember having a racetrack, a doube decker bus, a train with pigs in the wagons, a cake with a cooked breakfast on top and a computer!

Ruthie-Baby(old a/c) · Tue Oct 17, 2006 10:09 am

wow

you're all so lucky...

cj · Post by cj » Tue Oct 17, 2006 12:52 pm

I'm very much of the view that your birthday is one of the most important days to celebrate. It's a personal and individual celebration in acknowledgement of your entry into the world, so I always try to make it as special as possible.