Birthday cakes

Not mine, I hasten to add.

For my daughter’s ninth birthday, we threw her a party. I decided to go whole hog and make her a cake. Cakes are not my forte, so this was a BIG deal. (I’d added food dye to her eighth birthday cake and it turned a very pretty, fluorescent turquoise which no one would eat. Kids are so banal.)

Anyway, I rented a cake tin in the shape of a nine, spent HOURS making separate cake layers, adding fillings and lavishly decorating the top. I removed the tin and stood back to admire my handywork. Only then realising it was upside down. And no, an upside-down nine does not a six maketh. It makes a sort of ‘p’.

After weeping copiously, I decided to brazen it out. We duly took her and ten of her friends off to the local swimming baths and at the appropriate moment I whipped out the cake, shouting “Look! It’s a nine!” And chopped it into slices before anyone could react. One child did start to say: “Isnt it a...” but I glared at it until it thought better.

My daughter has made her own birthday cakes ever since. See one minor example of hers above. And…er…um…mine…below.