Not always a Cake-walk

My baking career began with my first child's birthday. A fellow mum loaned me the recipe and cake tin to make a huge number 1 cake. It tasted pretty bad and didn't look that great either. By Jack's second birthday I had improved greatly and made my own version of a Jack-in-a-box cake. A pirate party for his third birthday and I made a lighthouse cake which proved to be more like the leaning tower of Pisa. A magic party complete with magician and my husband making wands for the party bags; I made a black and white cake decorated with stars and moons. Just after his fourth birthday I gave birth to our daughter. On her first birthday I was exhausted and ran to the supermarket to buy her a Snowman cake so that I could plonk a single candle into his orange nose. My indignant five year old son moaned "how come she gets a bought cake?"

In the years that have followed we have had a mixture of home made cakes and, quite often, shop bought offerings.

Jack has this week graduated with a first class honours degree. Colin the Caterpillar was never going to (excuse the pun) make the cut. I couldn't resist making and decorating my own. Love is cooked and baked into food and this time, a large dollop of pride.