The Craftiest Workshop

This is the first time since I started my blog that I forgot to post on a Saturday. It was a ready to be sent out; I just forgot.

I meant to write this blog last spring but for some reason I didn’t get around to it and it really felt like an Easter/Spring post. Instead of waiting until Easter, I have decided to post it now.

The idea of making a bunny cake using two round cakes was floating around on social media last year and is back again this year. I cut up some paper to demonstrate. You end up with two ears, the head and a bow tie.

I do plan to make one of these cakes for Easter but that isn’t what this post is actually about. As soon as I saw this pieced together cake, memories started to come to mind about cakes from my childhood.

We had this cookbook in our house that had different decorated cakes. Every year close to our birthday, we would peruse through the book and choose a cake that we wanted for our birthday cake. Kind of like scrolling through the Sears Christmas catalog before Christmas to choose toys.

I seemed to particularly like the bunny cake having chose it for at least two birthdays.

The bear was also a well liked choice. Both my brother Greg and I chose it for our birthdays. The two photos are backwards chronologically; I was the baby in the second photo. My mom’s cake decorating improved with practice.

There was the hot air balloon with Fisher Price people added.

I also found a photo of my younger brother Doug’s rocket ship cake.

Birthday traditions were important in our family. You got to choose your special cake, you got to lick the beaters when the cake got made and you had to suffer through the bumps.

The bumps had someone holding your hands and another person holding your ankles. You would be swung up and down a number of times to match your age. I also recall getting pinched “to grow an inch” and a slap “to grow fat”. I am sure I found it fun when I was young (I do look happy in the photo) but later on I came to dread the bumps, pinches and slaps.

While we didn’t carry on the tradition of the bumps when our kids were growing up, we did allow cakes to be chosen and beaters did get licked. We had a special birthday plate that came out and the birthday boy got to choose his favourite meal at a home party with a few friends.

My point in sharing this post is all about how memories come back to you at the oddest times. A photo you see, a smell or a taste can send your mind hopping into the past.