It was the husband’s birthday today. So, instead of cooking up a storm in the kitchen we all headed to Pizza Express for a family tea.

However, that doesn’t mean the toddler and I weren’t busy a la cuisine. I don’t profess to be a master baker by any stretch of the imagination. I’m a bit too impatient. I can’t be doing with having to wait for things to cool down before I either eat them or decorate them – generally. But, by 8.30 this morning we’d baked a sponge!

It was a basic sponge mix, although I did swap 2 oz of flour for cocoa to make it a reasonably rich chocolate sponge. It cooled whilst the toddler and I went to his swimming lesson and I iced it with a run-of-the-mill butter icing on our return. Then came the good bit.

The toddler and I had been shopping the previous week and I let him go wild when we got to the cake decorations section of a local store. He didn’t hold back and you can see the result above.

The verdict from the husband: ‘That is a truly magnificent cake.’ I have to agree. And it didn’t taste too bad either.