Cakey Bakey Heart*

* all credit to the birthday boy for the title of this post. That's YOU doncra.

I love baking and I love this project, but boy - I am really glad to know that the birthday on Wednesday is the only one listed in my office for June. Of course, technically, this means I am giving my manager the boot, but whatever. Don't take it personally, dude.

One reason I will be glad for a break in June is that my pantry is stuffed full of homebrand candy, and I have no idea what to do with it all. This cake added to my large candy collection with spearmint leaves, large and small jubes, bullets, licorice allsorts and chocolate-coated sultanas. If anybody has children who want to rot their teeth out, please come to my house (when I'm not there, preferably)...

Anyway, on to the cake. I was incredibly sensible this week and bought most of my ingredients the day before I baked. Naturally I forgot some of the key ingredients but at the very least I was able to spend my Sunday morning baking the three cakes (two loaf cakes and one round pudding basin) while watching Meet the Press and Insiders.

The pudding basin idea is cute but my oven apparently doesn't cook too evenly, so it was a bit lopsided. Nothing that a bit of trimming couldn't handle though. And then, thanks to Jess for her very helpful tip, I coloured a whole bag of coconut to be "grass", using a freezer bag and some vigorous shaking action. Awesome.

The hardest part of today's cake? transporting it. How to do it, how to do it... 

Martha's Great Engineering Feat of 2010: Putting Boot Cake into Plastic Crate and Transporting for Several Kilometres... Safely!

Degree of difficulty: 5.5

Alterations to the recipe: It is impossible to find miniature candies like in the picture, so i improvised with quartered jelly beans, spearmint leaves and jubes. Once again, I used the provided icing with one of the packet cakes to adhere the grass to the cake board. Also, my chocolate icing always ends up paler than in the book... no idea why but it tastes fine!

Other comments: this cake should feed a LOT of people. It's three cakes skewered together.

And, Family: I promise you guys will be the beneficiaries of the next one

xxMartha

And, after the carnage: