Birthday Soup for Little Bear?

(image credit)

Man, I love that book! But no, our Little Bear didn't get birthday soup.  She got a birthday cake that tasted nothing like soup! (although one day I want to make her a birthday cake that looks like a big bowl of soup)

I made her birthday cake again this year (1st birthday cake here, 2nd birthday cake here) and she finally got that Cinderella cake!  We had a little conversation about what sort of cake she wanted for her birthday and it went something like this...

Me- What sort of birthday cake do you want Little Bear?

LB- Um, I wand an ithetweam take pweese.

Me- But it'll be really cold, are you sure you want an icecream cake?

LB- Um, yeeeeeah, I wand a warm one.

Me- A warm icecream cake?

LB- Um, yeah, dats wad I wand.

 

So, nothing like being set an impossible task, there's no way I can fail her, right?

 

We talked around in circles for a few minutes and decided that a princess cake would be good.  I didn't commit to a particular princess because I had no idea what I was able to pull off so I thought I'd wait until I could see what props were available and if it was going to be one of "THE" princesses or just your generic run-of-the-mill princesses.

 

I got to Target to check out the girls toy section and I found these cute little princesses with a spare change of clothes (because all good princesses need a spare change of clothes) and figured I'd find out which one she would like and make the cake in the shape of something from that particular princesses story.  I rang Chimera and started asking but then I had to stop and ask a mother and daughter who were standing there which princesses I was actually looking at!

 

So, Little Bear has a bit of a thing for Cinderella so I grabbed a Cinderella and went and cleansed myself with a stroll down the Lego aisle and started thinking about what shape to do the cake... at which point I realised I had no idea which story belonged to Cinderella.

 

I can pretty much sum up my princess knowledge here... Ariel is the mermaid, all mermaidy stuff is hers.  Belle is from Beauty and the Beast, the rest of them I can remember their names usually but as to which prince and which story the belong in... I'm lost.

 

So, I considered hunting down the previously mentioned mother and daughter team... but that might just be a little weird.  I mulled over finding another random little girl to quiz about Cinderella but figured it wouldn't help my cause to get locked up somewhere out the back of Target while I awaited the cops.  THE BOOKSHOP! I can go to the bookshop and look up a book on Cinderella (I make it sound like it's in the reference section, hey?) and find out what her story is.  On heading out though I got a chatty checkout chick... I shared that I was getting this to make my nieces birthday cake... she wanted to know more... I didn't know any more... so I asked her!  I had my suspicion so I just came out with it...

 

"Is Cinderella the one with the pumpkin coach?"

 

She gave me a blank look that I interpreted as "How on earth would I know?"

 

But it turns out it was probably more likely "Are you seriously dumb as a post that you don't know Cinderella's story?"

 

"Yeah... yeah she is" said the girl.

 

"thanks" I said and then mumbled something about having boys and never being a girly-girl and it wasn't on the QCS test and I never took Princesses and their back stories 101 at Uni...

 

So, I had that sorted, I would do a pumpkin/coach cake.

 

The weekend for cake making was really busy... time slipped past and it was the morning of the afternoon of the party.  I ditched any thoughts of actually making the cake and frantically headed to Woolworths to buy something, anything that I could shape into a coach.

 

We got home and I had four hours until the party but the baby was cranky, tired, grumpy, hungry... I got that sorted, I had 2 hours until the party... plans had to change.

 

I started making the icing... and I didn't have enough icing sugar.  I never run out, how did I get so low? I never let my self NOT have a spare bag in the cupboard.  I tore the cupboard apart and send Wolf out to buy more while I started making icing with what little I had... and shaping some cakes to look like a coach.

 

Then, I did something really stupid... I coloured ALL the icing I made the one colour (spilling the bottle into the mixture as I did it so it ended up much brighter than I anticipated)...

 

At this point I am considering dumping my HUGE batch of bright pink icing on one of the shop bought cakes and stuffing Cinders in the top and feeling secure in the fact that Little Bear wouldn't give a toss if I did that, she'd love it anyway.  But I soldiered on.

 

So, JUST as my big boys are returned home by their grandparents and with 1 hour until the party...

 

I finished the cake...

 

Then, with much fear, I carried it on my lap as we wove through the streets of our town to Little Bear's house for her party.  I had visions of turning up with a cakeboard filled with mess and smears of pink icing from my head to my toes... I didn't even want to think about how I would clean the car after that!

But we did make it, and the cake wasn't too bad even though it wasn't home made.

And although it's not a lot like what I originally intended it to look like, I think Little Bear liked it.