Igloo and Penguin Cake for a Child's Birthday Party

I have written before about my rather amateurish attempts at making children's birthday cakes, e.g. the bizarre looking hedgehog cake that I had to make for years for both my children.  So, my 12 year old daughter threw me a curve ball when she asked for an 'Igloo and Penguin' cake.  In Tavistock Rockin' Beads (brilliant place with tuition and some amazing beads for sale, currently running drop in Mince Pie Monday workshops) we found these penguin beads and the deal was done.

I made a chocolate sponge mixture and put them in a greased pudding basin and a ramekin.  Not looking very igloo-like yet...

 I wanted snow-white icing, but thought regular water and icing sugar would be too runny, royal icing would be too thick and heavy, so I created a cream cheese frosting and slathered it on.  Uh-oh, it felt like it might turn into a hedgehog again.

 It wasn't quite as bright white as I had intended, but I had committed to it and there was no turning back.  I marked on some rather messy brickwork on the igloo, added white chocolate drops for a pathway, made a small pond out of blue 'ready roll' icing that I found in the back of the cupboard and sprinkled it with edible blue glitter.  A couple of handfuls of icing sugar later, I decided to add a Playmobil tree (nope, no trees in the Antarctic, but then again, penguins don't really live in igloos either!)...and da-daaaah:

 I broke the cardinal (and somewhat weird) rule of novelty cakes where everything on the plate is supposed to be edible.  Doh! one plastic tree and Doh! two china penguins.

And the girls went mad with some Baking Mad products I received through the post and decorated six cupcakes each and had a great, messy, sugary time.  We loved the Gold Lustre edible paint and the Giant Snowies.  The strawberry flavour chocolate buttons were pretty good too. 

Chocolate Hedgehog Cake for Son's 10th Birthday Party

I have a book full of inspiring cake designs.  Each year I hand it to my two children just before their birthday.   One day I hope they'll ask for the Sandcastle cake that's coated in realistic looking crushed Digestive biscuits.   They look through every single one and then ask for the Chocolate Hedgehog Cake.   Again.

I suppose I should be flattered, but I don't get any better at them and each time they come out looking highly comical and COATED in chocolate buttercream and Cadbury's Flakes.  I baked the sponges in two sizes of pudding basins - they took ages to cook, but were actually pretty good sponges.  OK, so hedgehog, porcupine, possum?  What is he?  Funny looking critter.  And a blurred picture.

Recently found a hilarious Jane Asher cake book with some truly weird cakes - a cake that looks exactly like a cabbage.

One that has been intricately carved to look like a bowl of Cornflakes with milk. (No one has been stupid enough to make that so I can't steal a picture of that one - but just try imagining a bowl of cornflakes.  As a cake.) I'm simply not trying hard enough.  As I'm sure Jane would say, 'Hedgehog, Shmedghog'

And this is what he should have looked like:

Can you spot the difference?

A Cake Idea for Gooseberries

I picked some wonderful gooseberries at Netherton Pick Your Own Fruit Farm, near Newton Abbot.

I used a very simple  Tesco recipe to make a gooseberry and yoghurt cake:

Ingredients

• 75 g (3oz) butter (thanks, Choclette!)
• 75 g (3oz) natural yoghurt
• 125 g (4oz) unrefined caster sugar
• 2 eggs
• 150 g (5oz) self-raising flour
• 25 g (1oz) butter
• 4 tbsp golden syrup
• 300 g (10oz) gooseberries

Method

1. Heat the oven to Gas 4,180°C, 350°F.
2. Butter a 20cm (8in) loose-bottomed cake tin.
3. Beat together the 75g of butter, yogurt, sugar and eggs until blended. Fold in the flour until smooth. Spoon the mix into the prepared cake tin and bake for 20 minutes.
4. Melt the 25g of butter and golden syrup together. Add the gooseberries and mix well.
5. Carefully pull the shelf out of the oven a little and quickly spoon over the gooseberry mix. Bake for a further 30 minutes, until golden.
6. Remove and run a knife around edge to release the cake. Cool.
7. Using a palette knife, release the cake from the base and transfer to a serving plate. For a picnic, simply leave in the tin.

The generous dollop of Total Greek Yoghurt (I must declare an interest - the yoghurt was a freebie from the people at Total) really adds a lightness and tang to the sponge.   

This was my second cake (first one eaten by my greedy family before I took a photo) and was delivered to a friend for his 40th birthday - I was told that the gooseberries looked like onions - perhaps it's not the most photogenic cake, but it tastes great.  Gooseberry season in Devon is now in full swing.

8 Children's Chocolate Birthday Cake 'Ideas'

Our good friends came to stay during the Half Term  break and it was A's birthday, so my daughter and I cooked up this little treat.

It was supposed to be a Victoria sandwich, but little E said 'I only like chocolate cake'.  We'd already done a three egg sponge batter (using Hugh F-W's method: weigh the eggs and use the same weight of SR flour, butter and caster sugar), so just sieved in some Green and Black's Cocoa Powder, put it in the oven and rustled up some chocolate butter cream.

A was delighted to receive this for her 39th birthday - I could tell she particularly liked the ballerina on the top!

While I'm here I'm going to show you some of the other birthday cakes I've made.  They're definitely not particularly perfect or immaculate, but they're pretty funny....this one was for my daughter's Puppy Party - her 8th birthday:

This was for my son's 8th birthday (yes, they both love chocolate buttercream icing unfortunately, it's got to be one of the unhealthiest things in the world.)

Oh look, there's the ballerina again, with some rather melting Maltesers!

This one's looking fairly understated...just candles, flakes, mini stars and writing.

This one is a scary-looking hedgehog - those chocolate fingers kept falling off:

This was for my daughter's 'Fashion Party' - heart shaped cake with loads of Barbie shoes and a tiara on top.

....and another hedgehog cake - that's what my son wants every year - it looks kind of like a rat.

There, I feel that I've really 'shared' with you all.  Perhaps I should submit them to http://www.cakewrecks.com/ - no actually, I don't think they're good enough for that - the cakes on that site are actually amazingly made - these are just proper Mummy made chocolate-fest, unhealthy but fun, messy cakes.