I had a few wonderful surprises last couple of days.
First of all, my birthday was a few days ago (that is not really a surprise I know when my birthday is), my boys baked me a cake. It wasn’t completely a surprise as my wee one couldn’t contain his excitement, told me that he was going to bake a cake for me with his dad.

It was lovely butter cake with whipped cream mixed with jam, and topped with lots of berries. We had this cake as a dessert at the end of my wonderful birthday. Thank you, D.
Then, when I went to my local green grocer next day, they already knew that my birthday was a day before, as my husband and wee son went there to get some strawberry to put on the cake.
We chatted about this and that as usual while I shopped. Then by the time I was ready to go, a stuff of the shop came back in with a nice bunch of flower for me.

I lost for words for a second, it was such a wonderful shock. They gave me the flower to wish me a happy birthday. It was their ‘thanks’ for the cake I made for their 20th business anniversary last month, but still, it was very kind of them.
Thirdly, last night, we had a big surprise in our garden. A little hedgehog was in our garden!!
Well, you may have your resident hedgehogs or foxes or something else bigger (deer? bear?) in your garden, but our house is a semi-detach with not so big back garden on a busy street with lots of cats and dogs in the middle of East Belfast. Although we try to encourage wildlife in our garden, things who visit our little garden are usually just bugs, bees and birds. (and some occasional mice my cat catches. )
We are soooooo excited and happy to see this little visitor. Hope he/she stay nearby.
***
Now, back to my baking. In the last post, I mentioned that I made not one but two Olaf cakes last month.
Here is the second one! (In fact, this was the first one I made, but as this one is noticeably bigger than another one, I am posting this later…. you know… )
TA DARRR

“Hello!”
This was a request from my friend. She showed me a picture of 3D Olaf she found on web, and asked if I could make something like that.
Could I?
Well, I had never made 3D cake like this…
I checked web and I found instruction from this site here. (Yener’s Way ‘s free tutorial)
And decided to give it a go.
I didn’t follow the exact instruction word to word, but the tutorial is very good, and it helped me to make him somehow.

Base is vanilla Victoria and vanilla butter cream. I used fondant and then royal icing to give him texture as it was on the tutorial.
I used a 30cm threaded bar with 6mm nuts. It does sound like DIY project not cake making, but I did needed those stuff to make him standing. I cut normal drinking straw and used it to cover the threaded bar.
Eyes, eye blows, buttons, nose are made with fondant or flower paste.
I used black, ready colored icing bought at the shop.
His hair and hands are made of chocolate covering spaghetti for strength.

When my friend came to pick him up, she was shocked to see he was as big as he was!
She liked him very much, but in fact, he was a bit too big and too heavy to be transported safely at the back of her car. She had to come back again with her husband to pick him up, and she needed to hold him all the way home.
I made him according to size of threaded bar, so he was about 40cm tall. (Original tutorial’s guide size looked much bigger.)
Well, this Olaf had an impact for sure…but he needed to get to the house in one piece. So next time, I shall make any 3D cakes much smaller in order to transport it safely.
Well, in the end, Olaf got home safely, and I heard that the birthday boy was happy with this Olaf. 🙂 Happy birthday boy means my job was done!
And I am bringing this to Fiesta Friday 68, right on Friday this week! Yay!
Thank you to Angie and this week’s co-hosts Justine @ Eclectic odds n sods and Jhuls @ The Not So Creative Cook.
Have a nice weekend!