Cake, Cake, Cake, Cake, Cake, Cake, Cake!

My eldest is now 7 years old!

The celebrations required cake, of course. The birthday girl chose marble cake.

The plan was to make the cake last Thursday to have it ready to decorate Friday (for the friends-from-school-and-soccer-party). Ran out of time Friday. Baked a cake Friday.




























It fell apart removing it from the pan.

I didn't panic.

No, really.


I decided that Sunday's brunch would make use of the failed cake as a successful variant of trifle.

I then made two little round cakes to make into a castle for the Medieval-themed birthday celebration.

It didn't look much like a castle.

None of us minded.

We gave the kids a quick intro to heraldry and had them design their own arms.

We fed them reasonably medieval foods that were also reasonably kid-friendly (bacon-and-peas, macaroni, carrots with-or-without dill, and meatballs shaped like hedgehogs). My husband and I enjoyed working together in the kitchen to get all this done, even with the kids arriving in the meantime!
















The cake was dry, but really, the kids were more excited about the licorice anyhow.

The icing was amazing (we used a tinted Italian meringue).

The trifle was a success!

Recipe for nor-remotely-traditional-but-very-tasty-trifle: Failed cake, cubed. Strawberry jam. Instant Chocolate Pudding. Whipped Cream. Semi-sweet chocolate, flaked.

Layer thusly: Cake, whipped cream, strawberry jam, cake, instant chocolate pudding, cake, jam, whipped cream, flaked chocolate.

NB: If you're topping with birthday candles, expect the flaked chocolate to be blown willy-nilly across the table and room. Maybe omit the flaked chocolate if you're doing this...

The cupcakes for sharing at school were very much a success! Thanks so much to my Mom for help with the decorating and delivery of cupcakes! It was so cute to hear the entire class sing their French birthday song (replete with cha-cha-chas and doobie-doobie-doos), and to see their excitement for the cupcakes, which were also part of the last week of school celebrations.

They were chocolate cupcakes with buttercream icing, marshmallows snipped into petals, and De Ruijter Vructhenhagel for sprinkles (we used the same on the ice-cream cone turrets for the Friday cake).

I still have more cake in the freezer for another trifle, but I think it'll keep for awhile. We've had enough cake for some time!