My first cake: a disaster yes?

[Impostress99]

Toddler turning 2.

I have a full time job and a ghastly commute.

Therefore I decided to bake him a bus station cake. To honour his bus obsession

I who has never baked before.

This disaster has unfolded. Please don’t comment on the scale. It is not to scale as you see

Either (1) 2 year old won’t mind this or (2) DH has go buy a Sainsbury’s cake.

For your first attempt at a cake I think you've done a brilliant job! Don't buy one from a supermarket, yours has lots of character!

Well done and happy birthday to your little boy!

It's a brilliant cake and your DS will love it - ok it's not professional standard but is far far more meaningful than anything you could ever buy in a supermarket.

Both my DSs love that I make their birthday cakes, every year we sit down together and draw a picture of exactly what they want and then I try my best! They get so excited to see it even though mine are most definitely amateur

It's made with love and he will love it! I think it's great

I'm sure lots of people have already said this: well done. He won't care two hoots if it doesn't look like something from a magazine. And for a first bake you've been really ambitious and I think it looks like you've put masses of love and effort into it. A shop-bought cake may have been easier but it couldn't be nearly as good

He will love it

DD1's favourite compliment to me is, "You're SUCH a good maker Mummy!" She's five, I'm not, but she appreciates the effort and likes being part of the "design" of her cakes. Well done - I think it's brilliant.

It looks like a cartoon! It’s fab.

Better than I've Ever managed. He'll love it.

Okay I’m about to cry with joy at these comments!

The green hot dog says “the Marbles okay area” after a local play ground and that’s meant to be a lawn with a slide and a Marbles border.

The duck pond is a feature at the local bus station where he goes with his childminder to go to the library!

Okay area = play area

Your cake has the magical secret ingredient that trumps anything else. It was made with love! (And its a great first cake too)

You think the comments are good, wait for your two year old's reaction :)

Another adding to the chorus of it's fab, he will love it!

2 yo will love it
It's recognisable enough as my 18mo has just pointed out the picture has 'quack quacks' on it. He's very excited about that.

Cakes don't have to be perfect especially when they are little kids and practice helps. The best cake I've made was the last one .... I'm 9yrs and 2 kids on from that first cake! Kids have loved each and every one wonky or not.

Amazing! Can't believe it's your first ever cake! What kind is it under the icing? really fancy some cake now

It’s a lemon cake recipe from the Internet.

The main icing is buttercream with yellow colour and Sainsbury’s lemon essence mixed in

Then the top is renshaws fondant which I couldn’t roll because it kept sticking to the pin even with lots of icing sugar to dust so it’s on bits and I tried to cover the joins with the black squiggles.

My SIL is coming and she is star baker. Was considering applying for GBBO.

Ah well! DS will love it!

I love the duck pond!
Bet your little boy will love it all OP!

I love it and it is awesome! I totally recognise the bus and duck pond but thanks for explaining the Marbles Play Area - now i can see the slide

Now could you explain the Please Wait bit of the cake. Are those ladybirds and why are they waiting?

It’s a seating area and they are supposed to be robots waiting for the bus. But they are looking wrong way. Face palm

For someone who’s never made a celebration cake before it’s really good!
My first birthday cake aabout 15 years ago was just a round one and all the icing slid off!!
Several years and a lot of cakes later I’m not bad and even get people asking me to make cakes for them!!
Practise makes perfect! And your son will just be happy that you put in the effort for him rather then the end result.

I love it. It's made with love!

That's so sweet! Much much much nicer than a shop bought one. Made with love, that's the most important thing.

A truly magnificent cake!! Made with all the right ingredients: patience, thoughtfulness, kindness and a whole huge dollop of love!

Your wee man is gonna love it! So it's not (shop bought) perfect, he won't care. For DD 2nd birthday I made a Bing cake and she still goes on about now, not so much the shop bought Peppa Pig cake for her 3rd birthday. Take plenty photos of the cake with him and in years to come he can look at those photos and see the love you have for him.

Well done you! 👍

That icing is a bugger to roll. I used it for DS's bus cake (age 2) and got round the sticking by putting it between two layers of greaseproof paper prior to rolling it. Of course, it wasn't big enough so ended up patching it anyway....

Bet it tastes great!

For the icing in future, don't use icing sugar to roll it out, use a bit of cornflour. If you're going dead posh, you can actually get icing mats to roll onto.

Also, if it's sticking like that you're probably rolling it out too thinly. It needs to be thicker than you think.