Birthdays in Buttercream

Despite a few sad looking round vanilla sponge cakes drowned in too-runny blue icing and swamped in a haphazard accumulation of Dr Oetger edible decorations and blizzards of hundreds and thousands, my contribution to my offspring's tally of birthday cakes has been lamentably poor. My mother constructed teddybears and pussycats out of sponge cakes, butter icing and a supportive internal scaffolding of knitting needles when I was little and when I was older, into my teens if I remember correctly, my Nan used to turn cakes into scenes from Woody Bay, my favourite place to visit in the whole world, complete with vistas of green icing, sugar trees, cliffs, sea, a plastic donkey and small sugar people from my family. I remember being so excited about these cakes - they were an integral part of each birthday and something I looked forward to immensely. So, imagine my shame when Youngest exclaimed at the breakfast table his delighted anticipation of having the same chocolate caterpillar cake from Co-op that he's received for the past 4 years, for his 7th birthday.

Unable to bear the guilt of my child never having had a spectacular home-made birthday cake to marvel and coo over, I resolved to bake a replica of his favourite cuddly toy, Bagpuss.

Bagpuss is sacred in our house. No one dare upset Bagpuss or say anything that might hurt his feelings. He is Best Friend and Right Hand Man of Youngest, the axis upon which the young boy's world swings.

And I had pledged to replicate him in eggs, flour, butter and icing......