Of Cakes and Cats

I have posted many times on my annual cake marathon. Me, who cooks as infrequently as possible and breaks into a cold sweat when 'Master Chef' or 'My Kitchen Rules' air their pressure challenges. For some reason, way back in the dawn of Baby Angel's life I decided that the one thing I would do each year was make her a birthday cake.

I have posted my cake gallery before and I think I updated it with the 18th birthday cake
but here is last year's birthday when she turned 19, 12,00miles away in the UK. Fortunately she was with her Grandma and Grandad and her lovely Auntie Middle Sis.

 The following day she came down with chickenpox!

This year I determined to get back into the cake making zone as The Baby Angel approached a decade changer. She proudly announced to me recently, "Hey Mum, I dodged teen pregnancy!" Delightful.
Yes, The possibly inappropriately named 'Baby' Angel has turned 20. She is no longer a teenager. I survived the teen years!!

In keeping with the adult nature of this birthday she chose to organise a wine tour for her friends. Since she is majoring in Tourism at university this year, I guess it was a good exercise. She booked a bus, planned the route and rang around the wineries booking the group in. Of course there was the usual palaver with people dropping out at the last moment but my present to her was covering the 4 people who let her down so she wouldn't lose her deposit. She actually did a great job getting everything planned, which shows she's come a long way.

Meanwhile, I had an idea for the cake I was going to make, but upon showing the photo I was met with less than enthusiasm. "I'm not sure those are my colours mum...."

A quick glance through my cake calendar and she landed upon this one....

  Really??? THIS one???? Oh yes, she was most insistent.
"Well, I'm not doing multi-tiered," I protested, "after all, you're not getting married!"

A cake decorating friend has since said to me that I was very adventurous to take this one on. No kidding!!!! When I visited the cake shop and showed the lady the picture she looked up at me and said "Well, how are you going to do that??"

I ended up doing a one tier version, with gerberas instead of poppies (I prefer them anyway) and quickly discovered what my cake making friend had meant. Piping black icing onto the side of a cake at 3o'clock in the morning is HARD!!!!!! I ended up making up a bag of white icing to pipe in between where I had wobbled off course. I thought it was a disaster.

Fortunately, with the addition of 'wine goggles' from their wine tour, all friends and the BA declared the cake 'professional' and decimated it relatively quickly. Which was good cos then you saw less of the mistakes!

Meanwhile, I have moved from set painting to make-up work at a local production of 'Cats'. I was meant to be a dresser (helping with quick changes and sewing up holes in leotards) but after the two make-up artists didn't get the cast ready until 8.45pm on dress rehearsal night, the Director insisted they needed another pair of hands and co-opted me. There are 28 cats to make-up and each one takes approximately 15 minutes. We work our butts off!

To start with the make up lady was a little aloof and obviously considered my 'face painting' background rather second rate. I was incredibly nervous and managed only 5 faces on the first night. I have averaged around 8 since then and I'm gaining confidence. These photos are a few of the faces I've done. I didn't design the makeup, I only apply it from 'photos'!!

Ugh. I can see lots of things I could have done better here. Still, I'm getting better and having a ball (apart from work which I still have to attend in the daytime)

The show finishes on Saturday night but we have a friend of Cleo's arriving in Australia on Friday so it should be a busy weekend.

I'll post again when I get back from the Heaviside Layer.......

Took Eighteen Years To Get This Far

It's been months, if not years,  in preparation. The event of the year! The highlight of the Adelaide social calendar! All singing, all dancing, it's  The Baby Angel's 18th Birthday Bash!

She selected the date some time late last year and started a facebook private event page. I suggested she send out invitations and she looked at me as if I were mad.

Building commenced in the backyard. There was a wall to be replaced, a pool to be refurbished, a pergola to be erected, a patio to create before the hordes of Adelaide youth descended upon us.

Life got busy. School started up again and things seemed more frantic than ever. My new role as the office girl at Himself's business took up the spare moments when I wasn't writing IEPs or Support Plans or supervising the integration of a little lad with cerebral palsy who started in Reception this year.

Building progressed. Ever. So. Slowly.
March arrived. Friends in the UK born around the same time as the BA began turning 18. I noticed their parents collecting photos and comments for their scrapbooks and celebrating with posh parties at sophisticated reception places. I looked out the back window at the dust and stacks of pavers and a creeping unease settled in.

I finally broached it with the BA.
"So what's happening about this party then? Should I be organising some invitations of something?"
"Oh Mu-um (rolls eyes) it's just a gathering."
"What about food? Drink (I presume we are expected to provide some)? Music? What did you have in mind?"
"Oh, just some nibbles and things and maybe a few dozen cans of beer and Cruisers...Oh! Ad you will make your usual cake for me won't you?"

At last something I could relate to. I started to play around with ideas until out of the blue my Middle Sis posted a pic on facebook which was perfectly appropriate for a girl about to spread her wings and take off. So, cake sorted. Sort of.

About this time her dad started texting and phoning with questions about the big party. The big party happening at my house. The big party which occasionally gnawed away at the edge of my brain with annoying questions like "Have you thought this through?" Of course the answer was no so I managed to completely avoid the question for quite some time as the building was delayed, started, stopped and continued to coat the inside of my house with a fine layer of soil. Her dad booked his plane and asked if there was anything he could help with. "Oh probably," I stalled,"but that would require me thinking about it..."

At some point I decided that this occasion required more serious marking than simply a random collection of 18 year old sometime friends, doof doof dancing on my back patio and vomiting into the building rubble. I put it to the BA. "Oh all right!" she announced with exasperation,"we'll ask the oldies early on and then they can all go and my friends can come."
This child has a lot to learn about the art of being a gracious hostess.

With Grandma, Grandad, the two Aunties and all our Baby Group friends 12,000 miles away across the globe, I felt a need to identify dear friends here who had had an impact on the BA through her early years in Australia. I made a number of calls and texts and felt honoured to have around 20 folks agree to come and help me 'cut the proverbial cord'. "Come around 6pm for a BBQ," I blithely quipped," we'll cut some cake, drink a toast and then you guys can beat a retreat if you don't want to have to deal with the mass of irreverent youth descending on the place around 8.30pm."

So the big day drew nearer and nearer. The paving went exponentially slower and slower. Storm water drains needed to be dug; I had big deadlines at school; Himself's business entered a crisis period......I contracted the ugliest case of rhinovirus I had experienced in some time and was laid low for the best part of a week. When I resurfaced we were two weeks out from the party and  the BA suggested we supply bottles of spirits for a 'cocktail bar'. "Dream on baby!" was my response.
Himself had organised to borrow a PA and suddenly the very casual 'ipod playlist' became an item by which the party could be made or broken.

Suspense and anxiety levels started to ramp up. What would I feed them? Would I be able to make a fair stab at this cake I had planned? How would we decorate the back area? What would we put the food on? etc etc etc

Himself suddenly needed to go to Sydney for the week before the party. Great.

The pergola was finished and the paving recommenced. It would be finished by Thursday... Friday.......

I hired cake tins on the Monday before the party and baked the two layers of the cake, finishing at 1am; then I wrapped the lot and popped them into the freezer. "What can we bring?" people asked. What a good question, I thought. I had enough presence of mind to ask one family for a salad and another for some stuffed eggs and yet a third for a potato salad. Beyond that I had nuttin'. I had submissions to complete.

On the Friday before the party, the boys finished laying the pavers.

There were still piles of sand lying around and wheel barrows and all their other attendant tools and mess.

Himself got back from Sydney and commenced decorating the garden with over 50m of coloured flashing lights.

He bought a patio heater as the weather changed, set up the PA and made sure the spa was working properly.

I thawed the cake and started the icing process.

Saturday dawned. In a frenzy of activity Himself went to buy meat for the BBQ, I went to buy food and the BA went to have her hair done >:-(. The boys turned up to remove their tools and the rest of the sand and rubble. They also picked up some trestles from the church for me. I went shopping. I threw random items of 'party food' into the basket: 3kg of cheese and 12 packets of corn chips to make nachos; 4 big partypacks of frozen pies, sausage rolls, spring rolls and money bags, 20 x bulk buy packs of lollies. I sent Himself to buy 'kid drinks' for that part of the evening (I totally forgot to tell him to get any adult drinks so when people arrived at 6.15pm I was without a glass of wine to offer them! Plenty of hideous blue Cruiser things though). But I had finished the last touches on the cake at 5.45pm, so we were roughly ready to go.

I've got to say the baby Angel looked stunning.

Here she is with her dad. Gotta love a fake tan eh?

Her dad, actually, was another story. He texted me earlier in the week to say he'd been having chest pains and had seen the doc to find he had raised cardiac enzymes and had had to go in for an MRI.  On the Thursday he called to say he needed a stent and was booked for the op on the Monday after the party! He always did time these things well. He had root canal work on the morning of our wedding.....

And so the guests arrived (I was in the shower of course). All the most wonderful, generous people who have supported us in our lives here in Oz: Kindergarten Friend who took the BA kayaking on her first camping trip; Dear Friend, daughter of the Quilting Doyenne who babysat for her over more than a year as I went to my regular karate class to take out my life frustrations; Brother of Dear Friend, who partnered her to the second formal of 2012; the Quilting Doyenne who took them both to swimming lessons every Thursday evening for two years; The Bestie and her lovely Mum and Dad; many of her wonderful mentors from our church community; her earliest girlfriends in Aus; two of her teachers who are great friends of mine and have watched her grow and of course A Free Man and his fab family whom we love.

Eventually, I gathered the crowd under the new pergola and thanked them all and told them about the time 18 years ago when I had welcomed the BA into the world in one of those weird anachronistic moments where she was born on one day in the UK and the next day in Aus. I thanked her dad and his wife; I got choked up by thoughts of my mum and dad who would have loved to have been there.... and that was when I realised I was unprepared. I had not written a speech. I totally forgot to talk about my beautiful, feisty, independent daughter. And I forgot to cut the cake. This fact was brought home to me some 30min later as the young 'uns had started to arrived. Not Max grabbed my leg in passing and in perfect 4 year old speak asked "CAKE! When are we having the CAKE??????"

Of course, by then I was preoccupied with: ensuring that the 'arrivals' were genuine guests and not gatecrashers; providing hot food for the starving masses and collecting up the precious champagne glasses from the toast.
Me: (carrying a tray of champagne flutes) Hello, and who would you be?
Boy: Hi Mrs A, I'm G, remember me?
Me: Oh yes, I've met you before at the .*..crash crash crash.....* (as I tilted the tray ever so lightly G-wards in greeting him).

Champagne flutes are notoriously unstable and behave remarkably like dominoes in these situations (that's my story and I'm sticking to it!!!)

I got very few photos of the actual 'revels'.

There was a great deal of dancing around the speakers and a very serious game of 'beer pong' going on. My determined efforts to keep the rabble out of the house failed miserably as they congregated in the laundry, end bedroom and bathroom. We served up nachos and frankfurters (called 'little boys' over here) and my sentinels on the front balcony reported the young lady fertilizing our garden rather early on in the evening (Amazingly, having got rid of all those nasty stomach contents she went on to thoroughly enjoy the party and left at 1am, bright eyed and bushy tailed).

I've got to say, the young people were delightful. They were well mannered, articulate (mostly....) and genuinely just having a good time. The 78 attendees (as per facebook) came and went in dribs and drabs meaning that we had no more than 50 there, all up, at any one time.

There were the occasional downers. The police came at 11.30pm to ask us to 'turn it down'. They were delightful and apologised profusely but we did have to take the doof doof out of the equation, much to everyone's chagrin. There was 'Spew Boy' whom I found collapsed on the BA's bed just after the police visit. Keen to keep the bedrooms alcohol (indeed-people) free, I got him up and supported him down the corridor towards the kitchen where we hoped to get him to drink some water and sober up. Unfortunately, as we passed the bathroom he spied the basin and, I've got to say, he almost made it. Shame about the make-up bag some foolish girl had left on the bench top.
We eventually bedded him down on a fold up mattress on the kitchen floor (no carpet in case of further accidents) with a bucket.  No one seemed to want to take responsibility for him, which I thought was sad. I tried to drive him home later that night but he was unable to coherently give me an address and I was not able to lift him without a crane. We left him snoring on the floor and in the morning he had gone. Apparently he texted the BA to apologise.

Most of the crowd left around 1am, thanking us for having them and leaving responsibly in cabs. Himself wanted to party on and kicked up the spa so 7 of them (4 were staying over) ended up in the spa at 2am. That was me finished and I told Himself that since he was having such a good time, he could see them all off the premises or into bed, cos I had had enough.

At 3.30am my slumbers were disturbed when the BA burst in to show me her birthday present...

 (photo taken the following morning)

Speaking of the following morning.....
                                                                                                                    

And a little visitor, just to remind us that we do live in Australia....

So, I think we can say it was a success, despite my total lack of planning and leaving everything to the last moment as usual. I'm not too sure I'd do it again in a big hurry but I suppose I don't have to.....


Alice Cooper: Eighteen

As Time Goes By. Or Gallops Past.

This week we have celebrated the, somewhat astonishing, passing of the 17th anniversary of my Baby Angel's birth.

I mean, not really astonishing, after all, last year she was 16 so I can hardly claim to be surprised. But when I think back on the event in question- the number 17, especially when associated with the word 'years', leaves me with a surreal feeling.

Time messes with your head.

I mean, how did this

become this?
  

If nothing else convinces you of the existence of a divine plan, the glorious emergence of a full person from the tiny creatures we birth must surely come close.

Last year we had many proclamations of neglect:

"I didn't even get a birthday party!"

Well BA, let me remind you what you did on your birthday

Sorry. Was the whole Formal experience not enough??????

What about the cake?

Was not enough attention paid to you?
Welcome to the life of someone born ten days before Christmas! But enough about MY issues.

This year was a 'big one'. After all, seventeen means driving, and finishing school......and to tell the truth, perhaps I was feeling a little guilty over last year. Plus, as I reminded myself, we had always done a bigger birthday on the odd years.

So I started planning. I booked an Italian restaurant, because that's the type she likes. I ordered those concert tickets online for her, getting an extra one so she could take a friend, and finally I facebooked a few of her oldest friends (from the 978 she apparently has!!!!!) to meet us in town at the restaurant for a surprise.

Her birthday dawned and she had a package to open in the morning.

The gang were there to meet her at the restaurant.

Boyfriend was on hand, attentive and had bought her nice things!

Even if he does look a bit cagy here. In his defence, apparently the flash was quite bright. I assume this means he has not spent most of his childhood being photographed by his doting parents...I mean...does the BA look fazed by the flash??

And LOOK! We had the Small Boy with us!!!! (Also looking slightly cagy and fazed by the flash.
Maybe it is a boy thing? )

Great silliness ensued. Boyfriend looked on indulgently. Really, he is incredibly indulgent. I would have got fed up with all that giggling months ago!

Gotta say they are pretty gorgeous kids though.

The only minor downer was that I actually ran out of time and space and had to buy her a cake.

Oh well. She wants to do a 'gathering' at our place later in the year so perhaps I will do one of my tacky homemade cakes then? I mean, a tradition is a tradition!!!!

Happy Birthday my beautiful and precious girl. I can't believe it is 17 years ago. A lifetime. Literally.
Certainly the best part of mine.

Cakes: The Gallery

My Mum has started commenting on the blog! I LOVE it!! She still hasn't figured out how to giver herself a name but oh well, I know who she is!! :-)

Here's her comment from yesterday.

"I never cease to be amazed at the inventiveness of you modern Mums with birthday cake designs.It makes me remember my valiant efforts with rabbit faces,koala faces, bear faces all cut out from basic round shaped cake tins.I do however remember making ,or trying to make, a toadstool cake with a swiss roll tin shaped stalk and a round tin shaped top. The only trouble was that the stalk wasn`t strong enough to hold up the top! I battled on with skewers to hold it together and surrounded it with "green "shredded coconut grass" and marshmallow rabbits!!Anyway it got gobbled up in one tenth of the speed spent making it!!!!After many years of making cakes for three childrens birthdays all I can say is "I TRIED"Good luck to all you modern Mums and Dads."

Now that couldn't go by without me trying to find a photo of the aforementioned toadstool cake.

In my travels around external hard drive albums I found these pieces of evidence:

This is the only picture I could find of the rabbit birthday cake, which was my second. That's me on the left, the iridescent redhead amidst a tribe of tanned Aussies (even though they came out on the boat from England with us at exactly the same time......sheesh....some things just aren't fair...or in my case....they are always fair! hahahahaha).

This is my 8th birthday. Sadly, that is me up the end of the table in yellow. Middle Sis is two to my right with her hand covering her face and Little Sis is under that pink floral dress of Mum's and not due to make an appearance for another 4 months. The Bestie is in there too but she's chowing down on the far left of the picture so you can't see her face either.


Awww, what the heck, here's another one. Shows the cake better as well as Middle Sis at bottom right and Bestie at top right. Now this is how parties were done in the 60s. Crepe paper runner on the table and home made party hats. Pretty special I think. Simple enough but beats all those 'shop bought' things.

Now here's another one from a few years later. This is Middle Sis' 7th birthday. That sylph-like girlish figure on the left is my mother! Gee Mum, you look about 16 here. Oh! And the curtains have changed.


Got to say though that this cake looks pretty straightforward Mum.....three kids and return from an overseas trip catching up with you at that stage???

So while we are on the topic, I decided to do something I have been meaning to do for a while, and make a gallery of all my cakes. As it is the only cooking I do (unlike my hard working mum who was not often relieved in the kitchen) I can afford to make a fuss of them!

Unfortunately, I do not have a still shot of the Baby Angel's first birthday cake, which was a (pretty impressive) clown. I appeal to all of our English friends out there as well as my Middle Sis who was wielding a video on the day, to search their archives and see if they have a picture of her first birthday cake. I don't know what I was thinking letting the photo op slip past. Guess I was new at this 'birthday' thing.

But here is her second birthday cake. It's a crocodile. Or a snake. Whatever. I copied it from a book.



Number 3 came from the same book and Mum, I'm sorry, I take back everything I said about 'shop bought' things. Actually, I suspect you bought the plates and table cloth here? The cake is a couple of jaguars back to back. I think.


I tended to do a big party every alternate year and this next one, her 4th, was not one of those. We had a few friends over for cake and coffee and once more, I didn't get a proper picture of the cake before we cut it. From this year forward, the cake choices reflect the BA's story or movie fixation at the time. In 1998 she was all about 'The Little Mermaid'. We had all the characters in the bath, a Barbie style Ariel which changed colour in the water and I think Grandma had bought her the mermaid costume too. I made this cake up myself which is why it doesn't even mildly resemble Disney's Ariel.




So the 5th birthday was a biggie. 24 kids from school and we used the Church Hall. The Baby Angel was obsessed with Robin Hood having watched the Disney video and listened to the audio book in the car. We organised a full on medieval style 'carnival' complete with hired bouncy castle (King John's castle), a skittle alley, hat making, archery target with those sucker arrows (had to keep the dads away from that one!) knocking Little John off a log with a pool noodle and Friar Tuck in full regalia making less than medieval balloon animals. At the end we put King John and the Sherriff in a set of stocks and pelted them with tomatoes (ping pong balls).
The cake was copied from a fairy castle in a book but I was under strict instructions from the BA to make it a Robin Hood castle; nothing pink or fancy. This was one year that I cheated and bought the cakes that went under the icing. With my history hat on I can now say those towers were not medieval and definitely not in the Norman style but, oh well. I don't think the 5 year olds were paying that much attention to detail.


On her 6th birthday she was obsessed with Treasure Island and although the party was small, we still did a whole lot of pirate related games: 'Pass the Black Spot', 'Treasure Hunt' and something to do with sword fighting and walking the plank!

This cake came from a book and again I think my mum bought the table cloth and napkins! (maybe not...my memory is hopeless nowadays). That's a chest of 'smartie' treasure at the front. Don't ask me why the mountains at the back are purple...that's how they were in the picture!
(PS: note healthy baby tomato party food?)


For her 7th birthday the movie obsession was 'Monsters Inc'. The less said about this party the better as it was the one where the BA lost it and spent most of the day under a table or sitting on our friend's lap! Still, the cake was good. This was my first attempt at copying something from a cartoon or picture book. It was also our last birthday in the UK.


In 2003, her 8th birthday, we were in Australia and she was obsessed with 'X Men'.

This is one of my least favourite cakes but I had such a lot of trouble trying to find an image to represent 'X Men' without having to try and replicate faces. I found this logo and tried valiantly to reproduce it.

I know. But you have to admit it was a tough call..
For that cake I bought silver burnishing powder and real black icing for the first time.

Onto her 9th birthday. 'Scooby Doo' was the DVD of the day.


On her 10th we had a hiatus from film obsessions and she perused the cake icing book and chose this one:
It was kinda fun to do as she helped make the toys that went on the top.

Now, her 11th birthday. By then I was married and birthdays were a whole new deal. Here are the gang wearing hats related to their own age which all equal 11. And I wasn't even a Maths teacher at this point! (Mine's on the table next to the BA, guess how old I was?)

As you can see, the cake instruction that year was simply: decadent chocolate. This had chocolate icing and chocolate drops in white and dark choc scattered all over it. It doesn't look much but as I recall it tasted great!!

But by her 12th I was back in cake making mode. Here is her ipod. It was her current obsession.


Her 13th birthday was the infamous movie party. I thought this one turned out well.



For her 14th we went to see 'Phantom of the Opera' and she was obsessed by that.


And her 15th was the 'working girl' themed Big Mac:

But now with all that I still haven't managed to find a picture of mum's toadstool cake! I'll be emailing dad and hopefully have that to add later.