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Different kitchens, same happy mess
Mums, dads, grandmothers and grandads, all making a themed cake with the children rather than for them. Buttercream, shop-bought sweets, and not one perfectly straight edge between them.
Different kitchens, same happy mess
Mums, dads, grandmothers and grandads, all making a themed cake with the children rather than for them.
The dump truck getting its second coat, with a lot of supervision.
Wafer spikes go on last, and never quite in a straight line.
Ice cream cone turrets, flags on cocktail sticks, one leaning tower.
Hand over hand with the palette knife — the bit worth photographing.
Small hands, big decisions about where the buttons go.
Crushing the cookies is the most requested job in the book.
Finished, wonky, and exactly right.
Things that go
Cookie wheels, pretzel ladders and candy headlights. Nothing that needs a steady hand.
Fire truck red takes three coats and a lot of patience.
Crushed cookie dirt, chocolate rocks, and a very serious site foreman.
Chocolate sticks make the track. The track always gets eaten first.
Low, wide, and covered in more candy than any race car needs.
Three generations, one pretzel ladder, plenty of opinions.
Carrying it to the table is the proudest ten seconds of the day.
Animals
Round cakes, friendly faces, and sweets doing all the hard work.
The shell is just cookies laid on green frosting. That's the whole trick.
Every spike goes in somewhere slightly different. That's the charm.
Two halves, two wings, and a lot of candy along the edges.
Cookie ears, candy eyes, a snout drawn on with a spoon.
Fantasy
Ships, towers, caves and treasure — built from cake, cookies and sweets.
Sails in, treasure on top, ship slightly listing to port.
The cave is crushed cookies. The dragon is stubborn.
Stacked, spread, and topped with a cone. Leaning is allowed.
Filling it with coins takes seconds. Guarding it takes longer.
The dragon took two people to hold and three to decorate.
Out in the wild
Volcanoes, reefs and jungles — big scenes made from crushed biscuits and sweets.
The lava is the best job, so it goes to whoever asks loudest.
One dinosaur, several rocks, and a landscape that keeps growing.
Swirl the blue, drop the fish in, add biscuit sand.
Vines are just frosting dragged with a spoon handle.
A toddler on a step stool is a perfectly good decorator.
Good first cakes
Gentle shapes and forgiving decorations for the youngest helpers.
Two cookies for ears and the bear is basically done.
Blue pond, biscuit banks, and far too many ducks.
Red frosting, round spots — a good one to start with.
A row of cupcakes, one per helper, joined into a caterpillar.
Through the year
Halloween, Christmas, Easter and summer — same buttercream, different sweets.
The eyes are meant to be uneven. That's the point.
Pretzel antlers, one red nose, done before the kettle boils.
Marshmallow ears, whiskers scratched in with a knife tip.
Stripes by committee, which is exactly how it should look.
Birthday classics
The cakes that turn up year after year, made at the kitchen counter the night before.
Candles in, candy on, nobody counting the wonky bits.
Rainbow layers inside, sprinkles by the handful outside.
Built from supermarket ingredients
Nothing specialist. Frosting, a packet of biscuits, a bag of sweets and a palette knife.
A bag of marshmallows and a chocolate biscuit face. That's the shopping list.
Green frosting, spoon-drawn lines, pretzel goals.
Cakes that look hard
They get the biggest gasp at the table and they're the easiest trick in the book.
Cones, flags and a bit of nerve — that's the whole castle.
A cone for the horn, biscuits for ears, a mane dragged on with a spoon.
Rainy day projects
Wet afternoon, nowhere to go, a long slow cake to build together.
Rain outside, snail inside, pyjamas until teatime.
Biscuit roof tiles, one at a time, for as long as it takes.
Party showstoppers
The cake that comes through the door to a room full of shouting.
Sparkler on top, ten seconds of complete silence, then uproar.
The dragon gets a round of applause every single time.
Family favourites
The ones that get asked for again, usually by the youngest person in the house.
Three generations and one very small foreman.
Biscuit ears, candy eyes, whiskers that never match.
Crowd pleasers
Enough for a whole class, a whole street, or a very hungry family.
One tin, twenty slices, no leftovers.
A slice each, and everyone argues over the head.
Children can help with these
Jobs small hands can actually do: pressing, sprinkling, crushing and choosing.
Every sweet placed by someone under six.
Sprinkling the crumbs is a proper job with a proper title.
Mailing list
Be first to hear about new family projects
A quiet note when a new guide or collection is ready to make together. Nothing else.