#MySundayPhoto – Mythical Creatures & Birthday Baking Blunders

Much like my daughter E, I too have a bit of a thing about Unicorns. Even before the recent Unicorn fad I’ve always quite liked the idea of magical horses which can fly, although I’ve ridden a few which don’t feel far off that fantasy!

One of our daughters birthday wishes this year was to have her very own unicorn cake. Given that I’m a sucker for baking cakes when it comes to the kids birthdays, in that I refuse to give my children ‘store bought cake’, I set about ordering a range of baking bits to achieve a unicorn cake as requested.

I wasn’t entirely sure how to concoct the cake as E had mentioned a rainbow cake but after a little persuasion (and a few prayers to the gods) I managed to get away with a simple Victoria Sponge filled with jam and butter cream. After baking two cakes which I carefully stacked, I then set about icing said cakes which wasn’t quite as easy as I had imagined.

Firstly, I was working in a red-hot kitchen and every time I tried rolling the icing, the stuff seemed to become stickier and harder to work with resulting in me having a bit of a meltdown. I eventually cut my losses and ripped open a second packet of royal icing and started from scratch.

Four hours later I had eventually managed to ice the cake and was then ready to create the ears, eyes and the horn which were challenging to say the least. I first used a cone mould to create a horn but that seemed far too big for the cake and eventually I constructed a realm of wires which the horn was then rolled and twisted around before being painted and covered in glitter.

The eyes were drawn on with chocolate paste and finally the cake was then covered in piping which proceeded to melt down the cake despite having cooled the cake in the fridge for a few hours beforehand. By this time I had run out of icing sugar and patience so decided to cover the entire thing in heaps of hundreds and thousands, mounds of glitter and a box full of smarties.

I wasn’t entirely sure whether E would approve of my efforts but as it turned out she was delighted with the disaster which was my attempt at a unicorn cake.

“Baker baker baking a cake

Make me a day, make me whole again

And I wonder what’s in a day

What’s in your cake this time?”

Tori Amos – Baker

Thanks again for reading #MySundayPhoto post, as always I look forward to catching up with your #MySundayPhoto pictures either through your own posts or comments upon this post.