Piece of cake

I don’t usually go in for recipes and stuff, for the simple reason that I’m not a great cook. Last night, for example, I decided to make ratatouille, even though there was not a courgette, pepper, onion or bit of aubergine in the house. Yes, it was basically a can of tomatoes, with herbs.

Actually, having said that, my tomatotouille went down quite well – but it was a fluke. At the weekend, though, I did genuinely pull off a culinary coup. I made this cake for a little friend of the family:

 

I think you’ve got to agree that it’s a triumph – especially as it was iced and decorated by a motley crew of four children of assorted ages and artistic abilities, from 2 to 14.

Admittedly, a man (it would have to be) pointed out later that it was an unusual choice to have the referee in goal and to have the striker hanging off the end of the cake. But there we are – maybe, dare I say it, this is where the current England coach (whoever he may be) is going wrong?

It was an exciting weekend, particularly as the soon-to-be-birthday boy was in the throes of potty training. I’d had a confusing experience in preparation when I dropped in to the ‘boy pants’ section of the local department store. Who knew there were so many different styles of  underwear for trainee men? From cotton boxers, to jersey trunks, to mini Calvin Kleins, to what looked like the boy version of girl knickers. It was not so much a new world, as an entire confusing universe of pants, possibly to be known as a pantiverse for short.

Luckily, I bumped into the lovely Potty Mummy yesterday while we were all working our fingers to the bone for A Modern Mother’s wonderful brainchild the BMB, and got the benefit of her experience. ‘Briefs’, she told me, ‘are the way to go’.

Ok, right, so now I’ve just got to identify them in the shop ………