Elissa Lawrence: Get the book, it’s cake season

IT’S a time of year in my house that has become known as Cake Season. A two-month intensive of birthdays, heralded with the first sighting of a well-worn copy of The Australian Women’s Weekly children’s birthday cake book.

IT’S a time of year in my house that has become known as Cake Season.

A two-month intensive of birthdays, heralded with the first sighting of a well-worn copy of The Australian Women’s Weekly children’s birthday cake book. And it happened this week.

That familiar, torn, stained, dog-eared and falling apart original edition has once again been pulled from its shelf and opened on the kitchen bench ready for the Annual Selection Process.

After the fairy toadstool incident of 2007, this decision is never made flippantly.

There is much to consider.

The children know they must be realistic; they must preserve their mother’s sanity.

This means no “going up’’.

A flat cake can be almost any shape but it is all firmly planted on the cake board.

No tiers, no balancing, no feats of engineering.

A flat cake is everyone’s friend.

Illustration: Jonathan Bentley

Consequently, we have worked our way through just about all the “flat cake’’ designs in the book (brown bear with wagon wheel ears, soccer field, bunny, wise owl, cat, mister monster and various number cakes) as well some from the newer, more fashionable fondant-loving edition (Zappo the alien, piggy and the quite showy-off pink marshmallow-covered poodle).

Anything that calls for fondant is ignored and smothered with butter cream instead.

A couple of years ago, in a blaze of somewhat stressful grandiosity, I ventured back into 3D shapes.

After learning the hard way (fairy toadstool incident) that it is very, very important to properly grease and paper the sides of a Pyrex glass bowl if you want a cake to come out in one piece, not nine, I upped the ante with a soccer ball, football, echidna and ladybird.

There was also a spider sitting atop its web (black icing is the devil, don’t do it).

But I’ve learnt that no matter how simple and straightforward it looks in the instructions, it will always be more difficult, messier, more incredibly maddening that you could ever predict. And who has ever been able to find giant Smarties?

I’ve also learnt to allow at least treble the time you think you will need, have a spare packet cake in the cupboard, forget the show-offs on Cake Boss and Cake Wars and remember that watching the “gone wrong’’ segments from Netflix series Nailed It will always make you feel much better.

Making and decorating cakes has never really gone out of fashion but it does seem like there is something of a revival going on.

The recent international cake show in Brisbane drew thousands of people to see some of the world’s best cake “artists” whipping up all manner of “gravity defying’’ and “floating’’ creations, as well as all sorts of ridiculously realistic sculpted animals and gypsy vans.

Driving it all is a veritable army of home cake-decorating devotees who enthusiastically attend cake-making workshops and trawl You Tube instructional videos with an “I can do that’’ attitude.

One of the spectacular creations at the Brisbane International Cake Show. Picture: AAP/Claudia Baxter

Sung Yi-shin scored second place in the Sugarcraft and Exquisite Figurine category. (AAP Image/Claudia Baxter)

In our family, I’m quite content to keep it simple and continue the tradition of novelty birthday cakes that was started in my own childhood.

My mum also made me a decorated birthday cake every year – I remember the good witch, butterfly, log cabin (with Flake chocolate roof) and a piano cake made with white chocolate and licorice keys – all chosen from the very same cake book my kids now pore over.

There were other cakes, too, that have faded from memory.

But I intend my lot to remember the blood, sweat and tears that have gone into creating their birthday cakes. None shall be forgotten because I shamelessly document them all in a digital cake file, possibly in the hope this will negate my screeching, impatience and forgetfulness about when their soccer matches are on. The evidence of my exceptional parenting skills is preserved for all to see.

And so, 2018 Cake Season kicks off soon. Flat cake suggestions gratefully received.

Frances Whiting is on leave.