Mumsnet Talk

Just that really, but as background, this is a monthly local cake contest, that also has a kids section & this DC enters every month with cakes that some adults would be proud of & is winning, this months being a single tiered heart, royal iced & covered with hand done red roses, other months have been various 2 tier iced & decorated cakes, always comes with blurb from the DCs DM about how he's done it all by himself

Could your own 5 yr old do this ? I know mine would have had a good go at that age, but she could not have managed anything even close to the standard of this DCs cakes & DD is recognised as gifted in Arts & Crafts, so she has always been way ahead for her age in anything like this. I accept this DC might also be very gifted with arts etc, but I still don't get it & wonder if AIBU or if some DCs at 5 really could do this

It's a real shame, as its actually putting my 10yr old off entering as last time round she shared first place with this DC, yet she really did, design, make & ice her cakes all by herself as others obviously have too & if its putting her off, I bet it it probably is others as I'm seeing less & less kids entering

AIBU to see this as cheating ??

Mine could not but my sisters son...he could. He's 8 now but has been extremely skillful at cake decorating in particular and also at clay modelling and sewing! YANBU to be suspicious but YABU to assume no 5 year old could do this.

Mine would have been able to decorate a cake as an homage to Kandinsky Improvisation at that age.

Nah. One of the tea date things I used to set up when DD was really little was making cakes and giving them bowls of icing and decorations.
They were always a massive mess of splurges from all the girls at age 5

I loath the 'she did it all herself' shite in art competitions and school projects. It is absoloutely guff and really unfair when your child actually has done it themselves.

Could your own 5 yr old do this ?

Erm, no! He helps me bake and he's actually now quite useful at doing things like greasing tins or beating eggs. I'm teaching him how to break and seperate eggs, too.

But in order to be able to make a cake he'd need to be able to read a recipe, weigh out ingredients, mix them properly etc etc and that's without even considering the icing/decorating! Way beyond his abilities.

YANBU - it is cheating. If it's a children's competition then it should be for children. Perhaps with a little bit of adult help but this sounds like way more than just a bit of help.

If you can't beat em, join em go in with a 4 tiered cake next time adorned with beautiful handmade flowers that you have massively helped with and watch their faces drop

What MrsMushroom said.

I'd give the child the benefit of the doubt.

Surely decorating a cake for a 5yo is splodging icing everywhere (cake and table) then cramming hundreds and thousands in your mouth. The ones that fall out as you do it, stick to the cake. Or are my children just a but backward in cake decorating?

Be careful what you say.
When I was about 12 I entered the local horticultural show with various things. This included a soft toy I had made from scratch, having taken the basic design from a book, clothed it entirely from my own made up patterns and built it an umbrella using wire, lolly sticks, fabric and blue tack.
As I picked up my prize I heard someone remark loudly. "It's not fair, it was obviously a kit"
If they had looked carefully at it, it clearly was not a kit-the bluetack gave it away if nothing else did, but it was quite upsetting to hear that said.

Also if the parents do that sort of thing, they may learn from a young age. A friend decorates cakes, and the other day I watched as her 3yo made the most beautiful roses out of playdough, much better than anything I can do. Her dm was also a bit as she's not taught her, just she's got the nack and has obviously been watching.

Thanks MrsM

I just wish I could link a photo to see if its something your nephew could have a managed at 5, because they are very impressive, more not quite so skilled adult, that a very skilled 5 yr old IYSWIM - my DD has also always been extremely good with modelling clay etc , even cake decorating when younger, but she just couldn't have done to this standard, especially getting a smooth covering on the cake to add the decor on even a basic shape, let alone a heart, which isn't so easy to cover

I let my 5yo and 3yo help decorate a cake I made for mums birthday. It was a chocolate cake and I bought pink icing flowers and pink chocolate butttons. Apparently what grandma really wanted was all flowers and buttons crammed together in one inch of cake in a big muddy mess.

Oh, mine couldn't, but I am sure that there are the odd one or two who can - particularly if they're getting so much practice?
My niece is really talented at art. She's in Y3 at school, and the other mums are always carping that my sister must have 'helped' her with her projects... Er no. My sis is as crap as I am. Which is very crap indeed. And DN was about 3yo when she overtook us in the drawing skills department.

I reckon if the mum's good with cake, a bit of a tutorial would massively help the kid. I did some cake decorating with my 7 yo niece and she was using a cake smoother like a pro by the end of it.

My 6 year old DD can bake a cake on her own - including reading and following the recipe. But she couldn't decorate one with any great skill!

I'm not allowed to do anything to help her because "I want to tell people that this is the cake that I made. Not the one the one that you helped me make".

Ok then!

DD1, 5 years can bake lovely cakes. We have a traditional weighting scales and she knows which ones to use for her recipes. She has a hand whisk and just gets on with it. The only thing I do is the oven but otherwise all down to her. She can decorate in a fashion, but very much to a 5 year olds standard don't think she could beat a 10 year old. She can bake a few different cakes but to be at competition standard without lots of 'coaching' on a range of cakes/decoration, no way.

Is it possible for a 5 year old to bake a cake, ice and win a competition, yes. Is it possible to beat a child double her age, unlikely.

DD has never entered one though, its just for my love of homemade cakes her having fun.

Ah, DeWe ! The jealous sods! Are you still creative now?

My DD at 3 can make and decorate a cake with a little help - ie I show her where on the jug things need to be measured to, and I take it in and out of the oven, but she does the rest - granted they are just simple 2 layer cakes, with butter cream.

But I was entering and winning cake competitions at age 6, and they were made all by myself and quite skillfully decorated (if I do say so myself) but I was lucky my mum loved baking and from an early age I was helping her, so I just picked it up.

I can see a 7 year old being good. Fine motor skills and all that make me think that a child who did it a lot could be talented.
But it's the five years old thing that makes me a bit . five is ever so small. Five year olds can still be taking half an hour to get their socks on.
Not that I would dream of saying anything. It might be a cakey prodigy - on the G&T bun programme.

I'll have to post & run & will reply properly later, but I've just managed to upload an early competition entry from this 5 yr old DC for you all to nosey at, its top of my photos XX

No, not at 5. He can do bits and pieces, but I couldn't just give him the ingredients and let him get on with it. He definitely knows what to do (how to line a tin, the correct ingredients etc, but there's no way I'd let him loose with a mixer for instance.

No, I would be willing to bet that wasn't done by a 5 year old with no assistance. Firstly, that bottom tier would have to be dowelled and there's no way a 5 yo would have the strength to cut them, or lift the top cake either. Secondly, I don't think the piping was a 5 yo's work. Some of it looks like a child's work, but they have definitely had a considerable amount of 'help'.

I'm all for giving the benefit of the doubt, bu just saw the pics. Eh, no way would I believe that a 5 year old ALONE is doing these. Perhaps giving assistance, but def not independently. I'm really surprised that others believe this to be honest......

I would suggest after the next competition that 5 year old gives a cake decorating class for the other honest children to benefit from.

That is a frigging amazing cake. I'm with u on doubting a 5yr old did it!

Um - no.

Design, maybe, but not execution of all that piping. As others have said, maybe said 5yo should be giving demonstrations of this extraordinary skill?

I think that it is unlikely a five year old made that cake without someone else doing the whole thing for them a lot of help.

But why on earth do these people make things for a five year old and say it is their own work - what's the frigging point?? Adult knows child hasn't done it, child knows child hasn't done it - sense of achievement = zero.

Ok - I'm with you now OP - I doubt that was all that child's own effort.