And now a cake with purpose, meaning and significance

Unlike the previous cake (or, indeed, this gingerbread) , this cake was made for a reason. That reason was that Z1 was having a birthday party to celebrate reaching the grand old age of five. I rather pushed the beetle theme* and had been mentally planning this cake for quite a while. However, I am not one for trial runs of cakes so, when the day before her birthday party dawned, the pressure was on.

Chocolate Beetle Cake

The Husband took both Zeds out for the day and I had the house to myself which was very novel. The secret to this cake is mostly cocoa. The recipe I used specifically said to use hot chocolate powder, not cocoa, but I ignored that and just added in some extra sugar. I had hoped for green or blue sprinkles for the wings but the shop I was in offered up only orange. I also had to buy Sherbet Fountains in order to acquire the liquorice for his "twuntlers" (as Z1 likes to call them). Note also the broken up biscuits (cookies) around him to represent the soil with a few leftover-from-last-time green sprinkles to denote grass. My attention to detail is astounding.

Overall, I felt the children were not sufficiently impressed with my glorious chocolate beetle but they did eat him and I upped the enthusiasm by offering them slices of beetle's bottom. Show me a five year old who doesn't think bottoms are funny and I'll eat my hat**. He got mostly eaten and the parents came forward to have some too so a success overall, I feel.


* I am not really sure why I became committed to a beetle theme but there you go. I did mention it here and as far as I can fathom it mostly grew from my inspired idea about using paper fasteners on paper plates to make beetle wings (more to come on that one) and a general appreciation of beetles.
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