Arriving on a jet plane

Today marked the momentous occasion of The Big Boss's return. Not that there was much to return to - no election results and no government. However, there was new carpet and there was a cake, which always makes things better!

I asked the gang at work what cake we should use as inspiration for LVV's return and we decided on the "jet plane" (I say "jet plane" because it looks more like a cartoon than an actual plane!). The jet plane is in the chapter titled "For boys" (I couldn't tell you why, except that possibly in 1983, at least in Women's Weekly land, girls still did the sewing and cooking while boys kicked it James Bond style).

Anyway, back to the point. The prototype:

And the result, made using the basic buttercake recipe, vanilla flavoured, with plain blue Vienna frosting. You'll see I had to improvise with some of the lollies for decoration, having eaten all the bullets and chocolate peanuts previously. I found halved jelly beans and trimmed musk sticks worked just as well!

I did have two issues though:
1) I used what was obviously too big a loaf tin, as the cake was not as risen as it looked in the picture and was consequently harder to shape into a round
2) My Vienna frosting split. I don't know why, except perhaps I used too much colouring and ran out of butter, so had to use margarine.A lesson for next time, I guess.

Here is the final product! The photo isn't very good but by this point I was rushing to finish.
xx Martha 

Giant Donald Duck Sucks Giant Donkey Balls

Wow, Betty, your narrative puts me to shame!

I can't say much about my next attempt - Disney was never one of my favourites, and Donald Duck - out of all my not-favourite Disney characters - was never on my excitement radar.

However, we don't get to pick and choose these cakes, so I attempted Mr Duck. As you may guess from the title of this entry, it wasn't entirely successful.

One thing that I did not remember about DD was that his middle name is Fauntleroy - and apparently, he is a VIP member of the Mickey Mouse Club.

Erm. So, yeah. That's my limit...

On to a general comment about the Book though, and that is that the amount of food colouring used to get the vibrant colours in the pictures is obscene. Seriously, I didn't get DD's beak anywhere near as orange as the pics and I used an entire bottle of orange colouring. Scary!

My second comment about the Book is that if nothing else, it is providing me the opportunity to make cake-mix-cakes. These were (and are, actually) a complete no-no in my house when I was growing up, and I think i really missed out.

Yes, they taste like chemicals - but so fluffy and so easy!

Anyway, DD was a special cake for the Big Boss's birthday - I hope it was enjoyed.

The next challenge is Mickey Mouse.

You heard me - M-I-C-K-E-Y-M-O-U-S-E... Mickey Mouse!




xxMartha