Evil Cakes for Kids
It's the summer holidays, schools are out and the house is buzzing with the screams and cheers of two very playful young boys. As you can imagine it's probably the least productive 8 weeks of the year for me hence the lack of blog posts. Having a studio in the garden doesn't help matters either but at least I get to spend some valuable time with my children. Every cloud has a snot and ketchup spattered lining which I am thankful for
In keeping with my boys I thought I would devote this post to them in some way. As an artist people assume you're good at anything vaguely creative which is how I became lumbered with the bi-annual task of making the kids birthday cakes. It's something that started out as a task I reluctantly accepted from my wife to an enjoyable challenge I look forward to.
Having previously never baked or even iced a cupcake in my life, over the last 2 years I've discovered that I must have a natural knack. It could also be down to watching every episode of Choccywoccydoodah, either way I've been bitten by the cake making bug.
Like most of my work, nothing is pre-planned. I just go for it and hope something good appears at the end of the day. The pressure with cakes is that you have less than 24 hours to create something for the big day or risk a torrent of tears and several wired and hungry toddlers waiting for a cake fix .
The joy of having boys is that the theme for the cakes is always something close to my heart. Let's start with dragons....
My first attempt and after 2 hours of sticking red chocolate button scales a sugary Smaug emerged from his lair to be destroyed by a hoard of hungry halflings.
A tribute to the boys favourite film 'Jaws' which in an ironic twist of fate got eaten alive by people. Hand painted with row upon row of Milky Bar teeth this turned out to be a monster of a cake. We're going to need a bigger plate...
Most 2 year old boys love trains but not all of them like Halloween. As you can imagine, being bought up in my house is like Halloween every day so my boys are quite partial to the odd pumpkin and inverted pentagram. The Halloween Train went down a real treat although Christians refrained from eating the tainted and dark-sided delight which meant more for the heathens! The White chocolate and marshmallow smoke was my personal favourite and chef's perks!
Taking inspiration from the deleted Octopus scene from The Goonies I set about creating a Kraken sized cake complete with HMS Sebastian carved from a left over Easter egg. The gallons of blue icing kept the kids awake for days.
Another October birthday and another spooky cake design. This year Oscar wanted a Scooby Doo themed party so the cake idea was a no brainer - a haunted house!
