A Piece of Cake (Really?)

I've never learned to make a cake properly. My mum is really good at it and regulalry produced these amazing cakes when we were growing up. Back then, I was not particularly interested in spending time watching and learning or even going anywhere near the kitchen.

But how times have changed. I have two gorgeous neices and it is because of them really, that I started making birthday cakes. I wouldn't say it's a passion, but I am driven by sheer love to make them birthday cakes that are memorable and tasty.

Over the past few years, I've put myself through a lot of stress (mainly because I had no clue what I was doing) to produce a variety of themed cakes like an animal farm, a fairy toadstool iced with with chocolate and pretty fairies, a ladybug, a strawberry flavoured butterfly etc.

The one thing I have learned from all of this is that practice makes better. I only make 3 cakes a year but I've learned new tricks with each endeavour and my last effort even took me by surprise.

Little Georgia's 4th Birthday cake made earlier this month was a Winnie the Pooh themed cake. I had an idea that would not go away until I executed it. I had to see it through even though as usual I chose to work with an ingredient I had never used before - Gumpaste.

Once again, I found myself clueless but winging it, driven by sheer love. I made the figurines with no other tools than my own two hands. If the proof is in the pudding, then, even at the risk of self-propogation (by the inclusion of a photograph in this post), I think I did kind of ok.

But my greatest success came not from achieving what I believed was difficult to achieve. It came from the joy and delight on my little neice's face when she saw her cake. And that make all the effort so worth it.