Milly-Molly-Mandy Cake

Once again it is the time of year I get to get to play with icing. This year niece-the-elder got to choose the cake, and asked for a Milly-Molly-Mandy themed one. She was having a book party and dressing as her favourite character – you can guess who. She asked for stripes, a book, and a layer cake. I’m pleased I managed to incorporate all those elements.

The stripes I made using a baking paper technique I learnt from the handy internet. Thanks very much Natalie of Sweetness and Bite for such a clear tutorial, I was wondering just how on earth to do Milly-Molly-Mandy stripes and stumbling over her really clear and easy instructions was fantastic. Also getting to tell the kids making their cake required a protractor and compass made my day.

The cakes themselves are fruit. The base one is a gluten and egg free almond and lemon cake, the middle and top are raspberry, in part because I wanted the pink and white stripe effect to be inside as well as out. 

The next week was niece-the-younger’s birthday. I was a little tired of baking, so cheated – the cup cakes are store bought, but iced by me.

Further Cake Adventures

I’ve been playing with icing again. This time the cake was for my nephew’s birthday. As it was a family party I decided to steer clear of chocolate, as it doesn’t suit everyone (oh the horror). I also wanted a cake I could eat. The result was a gluten free egg-free lemon cake. I’m really pleased with it and the great thing about lemon is that the cake tastes better after a few days, rather than stale.

The nieces suggested a train cake, which sounded like fun to me. This is just one normal sized cake, baked in a square tin then cut to form an engine and carriages. There is a lot of icing – seriously so much icing. There will be icing dreams.

Over all I’m pretty happy with how it turned out, although the many ways it deviates from a proper train bother me a little. For example just how the wheels work when they’re outside the track is a mystery and the funnel placement plain wrong (but necessary for cake structural integrity, unfortunately). The kink in the track is also odd – when I saw how it’d turned out I wanted to create a train derailment, because there is no way a train could get around a corner that tight. Sadly disaster themed cakes are probably not suitable for toddlers.

Experiments in Icing

It was my nieces’ birthdays earlier in the month, and I got to make them birthday cakes. This was a real treat for me, as most of the time there’s not much call for excessively iced cakes round these parts. Seriously, a whole cake is a huge undertaking to eat through, and most people (myself included) find too much icing off-putting. So it’s fun to get a chance to play, though I’m still very much learning when it comes to fancy icing.

As the cakes were for kids, I only used buttercream icing, as fondant seems cruel to me (pretty icing that tastes yuck is not something five year olds appreciate). Niece the elder asked for strawberry flavour and ‘cake’ for the theme.

I also had a bunch of cake left over, and even more buttercream, so decorated some mini-cakes too. The great thing about these little ones is they’re all gluten and egg free.

Cake number two, for niece the younger. She asked for chocolate flavour and ‘a picture of her’ for the decoration. I went with a ‘thematic character portrait of her’ for the overall theme. She likes puzzles, music, pirates, butterflies ... well, take a look. I’m pretty proud of the result.

I’ll be waiting to see if I get to do another fun cake for nephews birthday mid-year, or if this was my annual icing extravaganza. Either way, I’m pleased I won’t have to eat more icing for a few months.