OLD IS AS OLD DOES and Can we really be cool parents at 50?

Between school and careers, traveling and, quite possibly, selfishness, we are marrying older and having our children later than our parents and grandparents had them. This means that when our children enter their teen years we are pushing fifty or more. As our children are coming to terms with puberty and those turbulent adolescent years which bring the coming of adulthood, we are dealing with our own mid-life crisis, both of us passing over the rocky road of a life-changing period, coming to terms with a process that neither of us are really prepared for. And because of the bad timing, we end up bumping heads a little too often. Our kids are trying to look older, act older, appear older while we, yes, are trying to turn back the clocks. We are trying to wrap our heads around the fact that we have aged even if we don’t feel it at all, they want to grow up all the while clinging onto the safety of childhood. We color our hair and slip on something tight and try to deal with the withering look or, worse maybe, the eyes rolled heavenward in disbelief of our teen; the teen avoids the scrutinizing glare, the judgmental scolding of the parent when he or she appears in the hallway dressed in a similar uniform. The line between teen and parent of teen gets finer every year.


Remember when moms and dads dressed like moms and dads? Remember the good old days of TV families, like The Cleavers or Rob and Laura Petrie? You know, dads wore suits to work then changed into beige cardigan sweaters and slacks before the 6 o’clock news came on and moms wore shirtdresses or skirts and blouses, sweater knotted casually around the shoulders, looking so cool and collected while dashing between clubs and grocery store? Moms and dads fell into recognizable categories and there was comfort in knowing that when we got home from school we would always find the same thing every day. And moms and dads never crossed the line, stepped over into our teen territory either in their wardrobe, their activities or their language. We wore the bell-bottomed jeans, they wore the polo shirts and banlon, we biked with our friends, played board games, surfed and danced, they played bingo and bridge or Mah Jong, had cocktail parties and went on cruises. We listened to The Beatles or The Rolling Stones, they played Herb Alpert or Burt Bacharach LPs. Now the line is oh-so fuzzy and our roles are tossed topsy-turvy up in the air like balloons, blown this way and that, changing day to day.


I turned fifty this week. No matter how I saw it coming, it still surprised. The years pass and somehow I feel younger now than I have for a long time. But how to be a good parent when I feel so young, when I loathe playing the part of “a woman of a certain age”, the traditional mom? Changing times call for changing roles, yet I think that the younger generation is actually more uncomfortable with the setup than we are. We twitter and Facebook, we blog and we text. We chat with our girlfriends on Skype, giggling and gossiping like schoolgirls, laughing about hot musicians and hotter rugbymen, we hold hands with and kiss our husbands in public and while watching tv, we dress in the latest fashions, fashions quite possibly meant for younger women. And even while our sons’ friends say “Wow, your parents are so cool!” our sons wail “Why can’t you be normal like other parents?” Our tiny pleasures incite embarrassed glances, their friends only invited over when we are out. They shake their heads in dismay when they see us hunched over the computer, typing furiously, giggling hysterically as we tweet or update our status. And as I slip on my Doc Marten boots over my favorite fishnet stockings, hands are slapped against foreheads, as husband chases me around the house whooping like a crazy man, dog hot on his heels, as we fall in a heap onto the sofa and start making jokes about the latest celebrity gossip, they get up and silently slide out of the room.

Can we be the cool parent at our age or are we simply an embarrassment? Should we get upset each time they say that we just don’t get it, that we grew up in The Dark Ages and therefore there is no way we understand anything that they are going through, that we can’t possibly know how to correctly use any of the internet social sites? Do they resent our advice, our advice lost somewhere between 1960’s straight-laced parental thinking and cool 20th century ideas? Well, yes. But what’s new? I actually think that our teens are just going through the same old teen rebellion, that ages-old parental disdain not unlike what we went through at their age and secretly they are pleased that their friends think we are cool, are pleasantly surprised that we have a popular blog, are proud when their friends gobble down crazy mom’s cakes and cookies and beg for more. They laugh at our jokes (no matter how hard they try to suppress the grin), enjoy going on vacation with us and think it’s funny when their friends flirt with us (yes it has happened!).

So stay cool, keep on truckin’ (no, wait, that’s wrong…), allow yourself the same freedom of expression that they assume for themselves, laugh at yourself (and at them) long and hard and enjoy that youth for as long as you can hold onto it. One day, they, too, will understand and be glad that we taught them how to be content with what we have, who we are, what they are and what they can be. As I wrote in my birthday blog post: Time is fleeting, life is ephemeral, youth is a game. Enjoy it while you can. Everything else will fall into place.

And I’d love to share an incredibly delicious, luscious, lemon treat that we all ate with gusto on this most important of birthdays.


LUSCIOUS LEMON SOUFFLE PUDDINGS

Makes 6 individual soufflé puddings.

1 cup (200 g) sugar, divided
3 Tbs (45 g) unsalted butter softened to room temperature
3 large eggs, separated
1 tsp vanilla
1 Tbs lemon zest
1/3 cup (50 g) flour
¼ tsp salt
1/3 cup (80 ml) freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 cup whole milk (I used half low fat milk + half light cream)
1/8 tsp cream of tartar (if you don’t have cream of tartar replace with a few grains of salt and a drop or 2 of lemon juice)

Preheat the oven to 325°F (170°C). Butter 6 individual ramekins or pyrex bowls.

Remove and set aside 2 Tbs of the sugar. Separate the eggs: place the yolks in a large mixing bowl and the whites place in a separate bowl preferably plastic or metal.

Cream the butter with the rest of the sugar (1 cup less the 2 Tbs) until blended and fluffy. Beat in the yolks, one at a time, beating after each addition until blended. Beat in the vanilla and the lemon zest. Add the flour and the salt and beat just until combined. With the mixer on low, beat in the milk and the lemon juice. It will be very liquid.

In the separate bowl with very clean beaters, beat the egg whites with the cream of tartar until foamy and then until soft peaks form. Continue beating the whites as you gradually add the 2 tablespoons sugar. Beat until stiff peaks form.

Fold the whites into the yolk/lemon batter just until incorporated and you have no more chunks of whites.

Using a ladle, fill the 6 ramekins with the batter almost to the top. Place the filled ramekins in a large baking pan (placing a piece of newspaper on the bottom of the pan keeps the water of the water bath from boiling) and very carefully (so as not to get any water in the lemon batter) fill the pan with hot water, so that the water is halfway up the ramekins. If you like, place the baking pan in the oven and then pour in the water; this will avoid you having to lift and move the baking pan after it is filled and risk splashing the water into the batter.

Bake for 40 – 45 minutes. The tops will be puffed up, maybe ½ to 1 inch (1 – 2 cm) above the rim of the ramekins, and a deep golden brown.

Remove the baking pan from the oven then carefully remove the ramekins from the water bath onto a kitchen towel. Allow to cool slightly before serving. Like a soufflé, the tops will sink a bit when cooling.


Serve hot or warm – they can be eaten later but are best when fresh from the oven or just slightly cooled – with a sprinkling of powdered sugar or a dollop of whipped cream.


These mini soufflé puddings are a cross between a soufflé, a mousse and a pudding: they will have a top layer of puffed, light as air soufflé and the bottom layer will be creamy, almost like a pudding. They are tart and lemony like the best of lemon pies but warm, light and soothing and oh-so elegant.

The soufflé-like top.

The pudding bottom.

They are also delicious after a day or two in the refrigerator, like a fabulous, rich lemon mousse.

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This post was written by JAMIE

Are you interested in contributing to The Daily Tiffin? Drop us an email: thedailytiffin@gmail.com. We look forward to hearing your ideas.

Three Years Daily Tiffin

It's hard to believe but yes The Daily Tiffin is turning three. Personally it's a grand milestone for me as I have watched this blog grow from a one woman show to an incredible group grandstand.

I was so proud of my first post, not only because it was the first post but my first step into the blogging world. Since then many things have changed here.

The Daily Tiffin has flourished into an informative, fun and exciting team blog. The awesome team that helps me put together posts for a healthy and better family life are all driven by one thing - passion.

A passion to share their knowledge on how you can live a better life. We are not experts but we are parents, thinkers, inquirers, go-getters and communicators and we love what we do. This is portrayed in each post and we hope you enjoy your stay here.

I thank our readers some who have been around from the beginning. We know you are out there and we hope you are enjoying what we offer. I also thank my team - for just being the best darned group of people I know. I love your support and appreciate your energy.

Come help me blow these candles will ya!

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Are you interested in contributing to The Daily Tiffin? Drop us an email: thedailytiffin@gmail.com. We look forward to hearing your ideas.

This post was written by Meeta

Birthday Traditions

April is my birthday month, and around this time of the year, I always think back to the birthdays I celebrated as I was growing up. My busy and harried parents always made time to throw a birthday party for me (and for my sister on her birthday). Year after year, they planned, baked, mixed royal icing, blew balloons until they were blue in the face, armed themselves with a ladder, sticky tape and crepe paper streamers, decorated the living room and put together a homemade party with the works- guests, games, decorations and a decorated cake!

One of the most vivid childhood memories I have: my parents would put together a themed cake (exactly the way Dharm recently shared the birthday creations he makes for his kids). My favorite one was a swimming pool one year (I was an avid swimmer at the time), complete with wafer-cookie springboards, green jelly as the water and little figures (crafted from sugar) bobbing in the pool. A couple dozen kids from the neighborhood would be invited for a party. We would play time-tested games like "Passing the Parcel", "Pin the tail on the donkey" and "Musical Chairs" but my mother had her other favorites too. One of them was the "Memory Game". She would place 20 common household objects on a tray- like a bowl, a banana, a matchbook, a pair of earrings, a newspaper, etc. The tray was brought out, everybody got to look at it for exactly one minute and memorize the contents; then the tray was covered with a dishtowel. The person who could remember the most number of objects correctly was the winner of some tiny but lovingly wrapped prize. Another game that I remember was the "Treasure Hunt". My mother made dozens of exquisite little paper butterflies and hid them over the yard. Teams of 2-3 were given a little map and then went on a butterfly hunt. Now that I think about it, my parents tolerated trampled flowerbeds, a ruined garden and muddy footprints *all* over the house to let us play this game.

The cake and the birthday song are pretty universal elements of a birthday celebrations, but every culture does have its own special traditions. Not all Indian families celebrate a birthday with cake and candles. A sweet something is certainly a must at every celebration in India- some of my friends had a traditional Hindu celebration called the "aarti" with a little lamp lit in their honor, with their parents holding the lamp in front of them, followed by a sweet treat popped into their mouth. In India, it is considered rude to open gifts in the presence of the giver, so birthdays consisted of a long and agonizing wait; the presents could only be opened when the last guest had left! Another Indian tradition: when cash is given as a gift, you are not supposed to give a round figure like 10 or 100 (rupees or dollars or whatever). You always give amounts like 11, 51, 101, symbolizing that it is a gift that is not complete and that it "keeps on giving", so to speak.

Celebrating the birthdays of children results in fun and happiness all around, and memories to last a lifetime. But as people get older, they occasionally say things like, "I'm too old to celebrate my birthday". I disagree! After all, the life of a grown-up is often not an enviable one- it is too full of cares and worries and boring stuff like bills and tax returns. Children get plenty of attention and adoration, but adults are usually the ones looking after the needs and wants of others, not the ones being taken care of. A birthday is the perfect time to shower some special attention on a person, fuss over them a little bit and tell them the simple thing that we all need to hear from time to time: "You are special. The things you do are not being taken for granted. Your birthday is an important day for us to celebrate". Now that I am all grown-up (or so they tell me), I enjoy learning of new birthday traditions and trying to include them into my own little family. Here is one that I particularly like- letting the birthday girl or boy (no matter whether age they are) choose the menu for the day. If they want to eat pizza for breakfast and doughnuts for dinner, so be it. It is their day! This tradition sounds especially fun for birthdays that fall on an otherwise humdrum weekday.

For my sixteenth birthday, my aunt gave me a tiny book as one of the birthday gifts that she always showered me with. It was full of little quotes, and she had highlighted one that read, "Ever since you were born, my days have been happier". To me, this is the essence of celebrating a birthday. To both give and receive such a sentiment is indeed a joyous thing!

Do you have any special birthday traditions in your family? Please share them with us!

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Are you interested in contributing to The Daily Tiffin? Drop us an email: blogmeeta@gmail.com. We look forward to hearing your ideas.

This Post was written by Nupur from One Hot Stove

Themed Birthday Parties

Children love to celebrate their birthdays and there is nothing better than throwing them a themed Birthday Party. I know that the words Themed Birthday Party bring up images of $$$ but I am going to show you 4 Themed Parties that were not only held at home, but where most everything was home made as well.

In creating a themed party, the first thing you need is a nice invitation card based on the theme. For the invitation card, I sourced the graphics from the web and then personalised the cards for each invitee and printed them out on to nice thick coloured paper. All this was done off of my home printer. Cost is thus minimal.

Try to decorate the house or party place along the lines of the theme as well. To go one step further, if you are giving away party favours of Party Packs, try to include some small toys or gifts that go with the theme. Finally, bake a cake and serve food that goes along with the theme as well. You don’t really need to get fancy food. The trick is in giving exotic names to everyday food just to go along with the themes.

African Animal Jungle Party
First up, we have the ‘African Animal Jungle Party’. My son was fascinated with African Animals – in particular the African Elephant. I had made a card too but I can't find my copy of it - so you'll just have to imagine what it looked like!

We printed out pictures of African Animals and stuck them all over the house. The pictures came with an explanation of the animals habitat, average age, height, speed and food. So it was a learning experience for everyone too! I even got my son a white shirt with an elephant and his name embroidered on the pocket – so he looked like a little ranger!

For the food, my wife and I cooked a variety of dishes and we gave them exotic sounding names, all themed after African Animals.

• Warthog Stew (Pork Curry)
• Impala in Bamboo (Sausage Rolls)
• Crocodile Patties (Fish Cutlets)
• Jungle Vegetable Quiche (Self Explanatory)
• Steamed Jungle Vines (Stringhoppers - this was bought)
• Jungle Swamp Gravy (Sothi)
• Elephant Ears (Cinnamon Sugar Pastry)
• Spotted Leopard Cupcakes (Choc Chip Cupcakes)
• Spiced Giraffe Muffins (Apple Cinnamon Muffins)
• Jungle Berry Cupcakes (Blueberry Muffins)
• Jungle Hare Marsh Jelly (Cendol Jelly served as 3 rabbit moulds atop a flat layer of jelly)
• Assorted Pickled Animals (Lychee Jelly in animal moulds)

I printed out labels for the food so that everyone knew what they were eating!






As a finishing touch, we put up a small tent outside so that the kids could pretend they were on an African Safari camping trip!



Prehistoric Party
What do you do when your child is crazy about Dinosaurs? Why, have a Prehistoric Party of course! For the invitation cards, I sourced the web for pictures of cartoon dinosaurs and then designed this card.


We did the same thing with the food and gave them Dinosaur names together with signs to explain what everything was. You couldn't fool my son who wa an expert at Dinosaur names, so we had to do our research! This was the menu:

• Ankylosaurus Curry (Mutton Varuvel)
• Fried Pterodactyl (Fried Chicken)
• Fried Archeopteryx (Fried Chicken Nuggets)
• Fossilised Fruits and DNA (Custard Fruit Tarts)
• Preshistoric Weeds and Vegetation (Fried Stringhoppers)
• Steamed Jurassic Tuber (Yam Cake - this was bought)
• Spicy Triceratops Pies (Minced Beef Curry Puffs)
• Triassic Vegetation Parcels (Vegetable Puffs )
• Cretaceous Swamp Packs (Cheese Tarts)

See? It’s really easy to turn normal food into exciting, exotic food that will not only delight the kids but educate the adults as well! It was all rather funny seeing the two sets of grandparents trying to decipher all the dinosaur names!

For the party packs, we made Dinosaur Eggs out of Papier Mache. The dinosaur eggs were filled with tiny plastic dinosaurs together with sweets and chocolates.
How do you make dino eggs? Again, not that difficult. A little time consuming perhaps but really not that difficult.

Simply blow up balloons slightly till they are shaped like eggs. Then layer them with paper soaked in starch or glue, leaving the tied end of the balloon open. Once the ‘shell’ has hardened, burst the balloon and remove it. Fill the ‘shell’ with your choice of gifts and then cover the open ends with more Papier Mache. Once it has hardened, paint the outside. I painted the ‘eggs’ for the girls a peachy colour while the ‘eggs’ for the boys were painted a duck egg blue.





Formula One Party
This party was a blast to organise simply because I love F1 too! As invitation cards, I designed and printed them in the form of tickets. The only downside to this was that some people got confused with the ‘venue’ and thought that we were hosting the party at a racing circuit (although there isn’t one anywhere nearby!) instead of at our home! All part of the fun anyway.






To get into the spirit of the party, we got our son a ‘replica’ F1 shirt. We also bought lots of balloons with Chequered Flags on them as well as a Helium balloon with an F1 Car on it. I also draped Safety Tape across the staircase.


The finishing touch was me wearing a Safety Vest and pretending to be a Race Marshall!!!

In addition to the usual spread of food, we also prepared some finger food and stuck toothpicks with flags of countries that have F1 races into the finger food.

Under The Sea

Following the same lines as the previous party, I printed personalised invitation cards for everyone. As you can see, we pretended the party was at an Aquarium but this time, I made sure to add our home address so the guests wouldnt get confused!



We got an Ariel T-shirt for our little princess to wear which thrilled her no end!

The house was decorated with green and blue balloons – like the sea. I had also wanted to create ‘waves’ out of crepe paper and paste them to the ceiling but since we live in the tropics and have ceiling fans that are turned on practically the whole time, that wouldn’t have been possible. But that’s an idea for those of you that can do it!


For food, we kind of followed a seafood theme and as usual I named and tagged the food as follows:
• Chicken Pie and mini Chicken Pies
• Mini Vegetarian Pies
• 'Ursula Octopus' Sausages - chicken sausages cut to look like octopus
• Under the Sea Pasta - Seafood Marinara Pasta
• Spicy Sebastian Crab - Spicy Crab Claws and crab meat
• Garlic Prawns
• Chocolate Brownies


So there you have 4 themed parties. All rather simple, with minimal costs and all done on your own without having to seek professional help. Oh incidentally, should any of you use these ideas, you would have to pay me royalties…..!! LOL!

So what idea do you have for a themed party?

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Are you interested in contributing to The Daily Tiffin? Drop us an email: blogmeeta@gmail.com. We look forward to hearing your ideas.

This Post was written by Dharm from Dad ~ Baker & Chef

Birthday Cakes - 3 Dimensional

3-D cakes, also known as Novelty Cakes are lovely to look at and also give the impression of being extremely difficult to make. How many of you have looked at cake books that feature 3-D cakes and sighed enviously, if not in defeat?
I used to be like that but no more! That’s not entirely true. The cakes featured in books are still way beyond my league but I guess the point that I am trying to make is that the cakes shown in books are not only made by professionals, but the pictures are taken by professionals too! So there is no need to sell yourself short by comparing yourself with a pro now is there.

This article will attempt to show you that you can do it at home - with a little patience and creativity.

Novelty Cakes are really not that difficult to make. The trick is to work within your comfort zone. If you are not familiar with sugarpaste, then stay away from it. If you are afraid of fondant, then wear a string of garlic around your neck. One thing you need though, before you take the plunge into 3-D cakes is a good idea and a little faith in yourself. Okay, so that’s two things you need. So shoot me.

The very first time I ventured into 3D cakes was for my son’s 5th Birthday. You see, as I mentioned in my previous post, the best thing about making cakes for your own children is that it never has to be perfect. They will love you (and the cake!) no matter what.

I was planning to make him a Formula One race car and I knew that I could just trace a car design on to a rectangular cake and ice it. Nonetheless, I wanted to make an extra special cake for him and at the same time raise my ‘skill’ level. And so I took the route of a 3-D cake.

That's how I ended up making a Ferrari F1 cake for my very first 3D attempt. Sounds complicated? Yes, it sure does. It certainly Sounds complicated but it really isn't as I will attempt to explain. With all things, a little bit of planning goes a long way.

I'm an F1 fan myself. Have been for many, many years. So I knew what F1 cars looked like. This is also where my Engineering training came into good use! I figured what I needed was a Plan View (View looking from the top) of an F1 car. The plan view, coupled with the picture in my head of what an F1 car looks like would enable me to construct a 3D F1 Car out of cake. I guess all that time sepnt, many years ago, studying Technical Drawing using Third Angle Projection would come in really handy now! That was my plan.

Okay, so did I lose you? Sorry... Let me try again.

As always when you are trying to find information - Search The Web. I was looking in particular for an F1 car in Plan View. As I said earlier, this means a view from the top. (like in the diagram below - you Have To appreciate that I drew this (okay, maybe traced it) for you okay!!).


The plan was starting to come together. Now I needed to bake the cakes.

Did I say cakes? Yes! I baked two rectangular cakes. Why two cakes for only one car? Well, the car needs a track to run on doesn’t it? So anyway. Two cakes. The first cake acted as the roadway or base for the car. I iced it with buttercream icing – black for the road and green for the side of the track or runoffs. The sides of the cake was iced with a brownish green just to differentiate it from the actual track. To finish off the track I used strawberry flavoured rolled wafers to act as the Rumble Strips, or kerbs. My track was now complete. Now for the car.

Using the second cake, I cut the outline of the car out using the Plan View and that resulted in a piece like this:



You're starting to get the idea now arent you!! Now referring to the plan view again, I cut out a rectangular piece that would serve as the Front Wings for the car. Next, I cut out another piece that that resembled a rectangle with a half cone on top. This was the Engine cowling.

Finally, the Rear Wing was fashioned by cutting a squre piece of cake and covering it with a rectangular piece. Not exactly the way a Rear Wing should look but hey, its just a cake okay!!!

The cake was then assembled on a cake board and covered in a rather thick buttercream before being smoothened down with a spatula dipped in hot water. I let the cake rest for a while before lifting it using a spatula and cake server to place on to the ‘track’. You may notice that my car didn’t exactly sit very straight but at this point in time, I was just thankful that I had managed to get the car onto the ‘track’ without any damage!




The four tyres were fashioned out of icing sugar, a little butter and cocoa, rolled out into a ball and then flattened in the shape of tyres. The wheel suspension was simply chocolate biscuit sticks pushed into the cake and tyres. To give further detail and authenticity to the F1 car, I printed out my sons name, the Ferrari logo as well as the Number 5 – as the number of the car as well as my son’s age – on to Overhead Projector Transparency sheets. I then cut these out and ‘stuck’ them to the cake.

And there you have it – a Ferrari F1 Car. I added two Lego men to the cake and that made my son even more excited!




When my daughters 3rd birthday came up a few months later, I carried on with the theme of 3-D cakes. My daughter loves all the Disney princesses and in particular Ariel, the little mermaid. It only seemed logical to make her a mermaid cake!

All things must start with a plan. The plan in my mind was to buy a doll-pick (a doll with only the torso while the bottom half is a pick to stick into the cake). This would be the body of the mermaid. I would have the mermaid sitting on a rock and then fashion its tail out of icing. Not only did I have a plan, it also sounded do-able!

What I did was to make one large rectangular cake and a much smaller dome cake. The rectangular cake was iced in blue and green – for the sea. I didn’t make the icing too smooth but rather used the spatula to make little billows – for the waves.
The dome cake was cut somewhat jagged and then covered in chocolate and placed at the top half of the cake – like a rock. I then stuck the doll-pick into the ‘rock’ but left it sticking out just a little so that I could fashion her ‘hips’ and ‘tail’. I used a mix of butter, loads of icing sugar and some liquid glucose (you can also use Corn Syrup) to give the icing some pliability. I coloured it a dark green and then rolled it out into a sausage shape. I then flattened one end of it and cut the ends to resemble the fish tail. Now it was just a matter of draping the tail on to the rock and shaping the ‘hips’ to join nicely to the doll-pick. I then cut the end of a drinking straw into a semi-circle and used that to make scales on the tail!

To finish off the cake, I drizzled more chocolate around the base of the rock and then sprinkled some brown sugar around it – to make it look like sand. I placed some chocolate shells around the rock and used fish shaped candles for the final touch.


Just last year, I made this Pirate Ship cake for my son’s 6th birthday.


In the interest of saving space and since I already posted it before on my own blog, this is where you can find the full instructions for the Pirate Cake.

And just last month, I made this Dora themed Pinata Cake for my daugther’s 4th birthday. This was a lot of fun to make and even more fun to crack open! Again, full instructions are detailed on my blog.




So there you have it! 3-D cakes are possible with a little imagination and are really not that difficult to do.

I still owe you tips on hosting Theme Based parties but rest assured that I will cover that soon! Till next time…..

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Are you interested in contributing to The Daily Tiffin? Drop us an email: blogmeeta@gmail.com. We look forward to hearing your ideas.

This Post was written by Dharm from Dad ~ Baker & Chef

Cake Decorating

Although I've been baking cakes from a very young age, I never had any rhyme or reason to decorate them. Sure, I've had lots of experience in covering a chocolate cake with chocolate icing and maybe even a little ganache. But that was it.

And then everything changed when my son Michael turned one!

That was when I decided that I HAD to make his birthday cake and not order one. That decision meant that I had to learn to decorate it too.


The first cake I decorated was for Michael's First Birthday. I baked a butter cake in a Wilton Teddy Bear pan and the cake came out of the pan with the pattern embossed on it. Thus, it was fairly straightforward to pipe out an outline on the embossed pattern and then fill in the outline with piped stars. Easier said then done though!

Due to a lack of experience, I didnt realise that I should have iced the mouth and nose first before piping around it. So, to compensate, I used M&M's for the mouth and nose. After doing that, I realised that this made the bear seem a little evil!

It also took a lot of time to decorate the cake, basically due to my inexperience.
Nonetheless, I though it was a pretty fine effort for a first timer and what mattered most was that my son was pleased with his Teddy Bear cake.

The following year for his Second Birthday, he had developed an interest in Construction Equipment. Although he had been hinting at a Dinosaur Cake the whole year, he suddenly decided he wanted a Bulldozer for his birthday cake.

I had spent the preceding few months before his second birthday doing some research on how to transfer patterns on to a cake. What you are about to read is with the benefit of hindsight and gleaned from my failures and lessons learnt. Hopefully it will be simple and easy enough to follow and you wont have to learn the hard way!

First off, find a nice picture from the Internet, a colouring book or any other place, that you want to use.

Enlarge the picture (using a photocopier) to the size you want. I find that A4 or Letter size is large enough for a large rectangle cake.

Trace the pattern out on to tracing paper or greaseproof paper.

Bake your cake and then prepare a thick buttercream icing. I normally use a ratio of 1:2.5 meaning 1 part butter to 2.5 parts icing sugar. The icing should be firm enough to roll into a ball. Then when you press it between your fingers, it should become a flat circle and hold its shape. The reason you want it firm is so that you can place a sheet of tracing paper/greaseproof paper on top of the icing without causing it to smudge.[See, I didnt do this the first time and when I covered the icing with the paper, it all stuck to the paper and was a right royal mess!)

"How do I ice the cake with icing so thick then?" I hear you ask. The trick here is to 'pat' the icing on. Take an amount of icing in your hands (of course
make sure your hands are clean!) and press it out onto the cake. Flatten the icing, spreading it out slightly as you do so - much like you are lining a tart pan or mould. The icing will not be smooth but dont worry. Once the cake is covered, smoothen out the icing by dipping a metal spatula in hot water, wiping it dry and then smoothening out the icing.

Let the icing set for a bit.

Place the tracing paper with the image on top of the cake. Using a toothpick, prick holes into the icing following the pattern on the tracing paper.

Remove the tracing paper from the cake and you now have your pattern transferred on to the cake like a join-the-dots puzzle!

Connect the dots by piping icing along the dots and you have an iced outline.

Fill in the outline with piped stars or flowers or any other shape you like. Or simply use piping jelly or thin icing to 'flow' into the outline.

And there you have it! This is the Bulldozer cake that I iced using the method described above.



The following year, for his Third Birthday, I made him an African Elephant. I used the same method as above but with a slight difference. I created the base icing out of three different colours - for the grass, the middle and then the sky. Also, I used melted chocolate for the outline.

Having only decorated two cakes before this, I must say that I was amazed at how well this cake turned out. The Lovely Wife was equally amazed and to this day she says – “that cake was made with 20% skill and 80% love!” Proof that with a lot of dedication, anything is possible!





Cake decorating didn't scare me anymore and I think I was really getting the hang of it. It was still hard work, but the happy look on my children's faces was reward enough. It was then time to celebrate my daughter Sarah's First Birthday. Her brother used to affectionately call her Bunny and so I decided on a Bunny Cake for her.




This cake was another labour of love as would you believe that my icing set broke on me halfway through the decorating? I stayed up until almost midnight finishing the cake using various methods of ingenuity to pipe out the icing. I have since learnt the art of using piping bags rather than an icing set.


For my son's Fourth Birthday, I made him this Dinosaur Cake. For any of you that have been forced to learn about Dinosaurs, this particular dinosaur is the Carnotaur that was little Michael's "most favourite dinosaur in the whole world." I added a few of his toy dinosuars around the cake to make it seem like the Carnotaur was stalking them!





Practice really makes perfect and for Sarah's Second Birthday, I made her this Tigger Cake. I used some store bought plastic grass and coconut trees to further decorate the cake and give it more character.



So you see, decorating cakes is really not that difficult. All it takes is a little patience and it gets easier the more you do it. I still dont think I'm particularly skilful at cake decorating but I think the more I do it, the better I get. It doesn't really have to be perfect either and the only thing you really need though,
to make it very special, is a Whole Lot of Love!

Speaking of Love, with Valentine's Day tomorrow, it's not too late to bake a cake for your other half. A simple square or rectangle cake decorated with a heart would be super. Or maybe his/her favourite sports team logo or even their favourite cartoon character. The possibilities are endless!

The next time I write, I'll share my experience in making 3-Dimensional Cakes as well as share with you my experience in hosting Themed Birthday Parties for the kids. See you soon and in the meantime, Happy Valentine's Day!

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This Post was written by Dharm from Dad ~ Baker & Chef

The Party

Colored Creativity

A birthday party for a four year old can be so much of fun, this 34 year old just has to admit.

We had planned to have Soeren's party in a playground in the middle of the woods. The whole week we were looking at the skies and checking the weather forecast, as it has been a mix of sunshine, rain, warm and cold the last couple of weeks.

The rest of the story can be found here.

Happy Birthday Soeri!

I am pretty sure that parents around the world will relate to my next comment "Boy! that went by fast!" It really has gone by fast. I still remember the days when he was just a few days/weeks/months old. Now, he's four years old and oh! so grown up. Dang!

Happy Birthday, my Sweetie!

Where am I taking Tom for his Birthday?

Here is a little game I am playing on my personal blog, The Family Buzz. Thought the readers here might want to play too.

I am taking Tom somewhere special for his birthday. Over Easter we will be off to this great city. Can you guess by looking at the pic above where this is? Actually, there is a cheat to this, but I hope you are all honest enough to guess without the cheat.

If you do guess right then I will send you a postcard from this place, so make sure you leave your address!