Birthday cakes

This was requested by a grandson who loved going down to see the ducks on our local pond.

I am trying to remember what the figures were supposed to represent. I think that they were snowmen or Father Christmases from a set of chocolate moulds for Christmas cake decorations. This was one of the first 'scenic' cakes we made for our grandchildren. I had actually forgotten that I had decorated one as a football match.

The design of this hedgehog cake was one we used when our two boys were young in the 1970s. This one was made for a grandson who has the misfortune to have his birthday on Christmas Eve. His parents usually have a party for him and his friends a month or so earlier, so that it doesn't clash with Christmas parties. That was the party, last year, for which the construction site cake was created, but one has to have a smaller family celebration on the actual birthday and this was the cake for that. We actually had to make another for his mum on her birthday this year. That one had a stripey look with brown and white chocolate buttons.

The naughty rabbits are stealing the farmer's carrots. They and the 'ducks' were from a mould set for Easter cakes - Easter Bunnies and chicks. The carrots were probably intended to decorate carrot cake slices. The pumpkins in the trailer were from a Halloween 'sprinkles' set and the leaves were little Christmas tree sprinkles.

This is my wife's favorite design, with the easel, water colour set, the pallette and brushes and the set of colour pencils in their case.

The brown and yellow fondant icing covered one of my wife's excellent sponge cakes. The drainpipes made from confectionary bootlaces were laid in a trench cut in the sponge. The walls and floors of the partly constructed buildings were chocolate wafer biscuits. The rest of the scene was formed from foam insulation sheets. The cardboard skips were later filled with sweets/candies for our grandson's school friends. The crane was made from tilers' edging strips, with its cabin made from Tic Tac boxes. The trucks and diggers were borrowed from his own toybox.

The Black Panther super hero exists in a forest realm so the cake had to be surrounded by trees, albeit not particularly realistic ones. The larger figure was about 6 inches tall and had to be hidden within the cake. That is why the cake was tall and still needed a plinth to make it tall enough. He can barely be seen through the opening in the cake.

As the caption says, this is the cake that our granddaughter took on her birthday outing to a soft-play centre.The cake was shared with her family and some of the centre's staff who were having a busy time.

The birthday food may look a bit sparse, but our granddaughter and the rest of her family had a lengthy visit to a local soft-play centre, as her main birthday treat. They dropped in to see us and celebrate her birthday on their way home. The cake was themed around her favorite character from the Paw Patrol children's programmes - Skye, who flies a helicopter to assist in rescues. I had been given six other figures from the series and decided to hide them inside the base under the cake. Each had its own little stand which fitted into an appropriately labelled space. Three of the stands have been turned round so the characters can be seen. The purple line around the base and back board is a miniature 'neon' tube which flashes. It is marketed as a lettering sign but it is very hard to curve the continuous plastic tube to make easily recognisable words.

Having seen a photo of a cake we had made for another grandson a few years ago, this was the theme our grandson wanted for his seventh birthday. It is a bit more elaborate than the previous one - www.ipernity.com/doc/philsutters/51550522/in/album/1329734 , but the current batch of grandchildren have got used to rather grander cakes - or as their grandmother, who bakes the delicious sponges at the heart of things, says - dioramas with a soft centre. It is very loosely based on their local harbour - Newhaven in Sussex.