Although I refuse to join the Pinterest competition to have the best kids birthday cake … I do enjoy coming up with fun ideas for the kids each year … when I say ‘coming up’ it is usually trawling through images online for inspiration.

My recipe is:

• What is the child into that year
• Will the cake take less than an evening to make/decorate
• Can most of the decorations be subbed for stuff at the local supermarket

There was Sally the unicorn cake

And the digger cake, which I LOVED as did DS.

Simon’s Cat was my super basic cake for DD this year … as we were going to a cat cafe I thought it was appropriate and easy … and my first foray into Swiss meringue buttercream (thanks to Martha Stewart’s recipe) … beginners mistake … used salted butter which had interesting (not inedible) results.

And now it is time for Patrick again and as he loves sharks at the moment I thought I would give a sea themed cake a go.

Cakes baked, tick… note the cake splattered page of the Women’s Weekly cake book in background.

Then the crumb coat … I used Martha’s recipe https://www.marthastewart.com/353415/swiss-meringue-buttercream

And it curdled!

Thank heavens for The Brewer and The Baker for the amazing advice …

The cake was a success and I had lots of fun make sand with shortbread (and a little colouring), sea creatures out of fondant and using coloured edible powder to create more of a ‘sea’ feel.

The shark is not edible, late night Kmart dash to find one that suits.