Let them eat cake. After beating it into submission with a rolling pin.

It has been a long time since I have done any "real" art.

The sort that you do with pencils and paper or paints.
I reckon it was 1987 the last time I did anything significant like this drawing.

It is always something that I am going to get back to when I have the time.

My creative outlet these days comes in the form of sewing, knitting

and making birthday cakes.

With the exception of the occasional purchased ice-cream cake,

each year I wear like a badge of honour 

the hours that I spend making

then decorating a themed birthday cake for each child.

This year we had a request for Pokemon

(note- well worth doing the homework to find the simplest Pokemon character in existence...)

and my daughter wanted a Dolly Varden cake

(not Dolly Parton cake, as one friend thought.

Barbie's boobies are a tad more discrete than that version)

I was secretely chuffed as I had one of these as a girl.

and you would understand that, in an accumulated 17 boy requested birthday cakes,

my sons had never asked for a pretty doll stuck in a cake.

(note- well worth investing in a doll that has legs which are disarticulatable

[possibly not a real word, that]

It is not worth the time and effort trying to reason with a 6 year old fairy princess

as to why Barbie's legs had to get sawn off
and no, no glue stick in the world would reattach them)

I am not a girly girl

but I did love the idea of re-creating a cake that my mum made for me

nearly 40 years ago.

While I take a pride in the results I achieve,

I admit that, as the year passes

and as the years pass,

I mark the passing of each set of birthdays with a celebratory booyah

as I get a break before the next round starts.

So when the last cake request for the year involved some creature that was 

pink and round and Japanese and apparently needed to be made from ice-cream,

it seemed timely that I came across a recipe for a pinata cake.

It wasn't a hard sell.

"Hey, lovey.

Wouldn't you prefer me to make you a giant choclate crackle filled with goodies

that you get to whack with a rolling pin then pig out with your mates?"

It was fun to make

and quite fast too, compared to the half day I usually spend decorating the cake.

The end was brutal and it was ugly.

But it was all over very quickly. 

I have to be honest and confess that a cake was definitely harmed in the making

of this 10 year old's birthday.

The siblings have requested their own pinata cakes for their birthdays next year

so I might get to spend a bit less time cake decorating

and maybe pick up a pencil again.