I promised a birthday cake like a volcano...

[AlohaMolly]

We are meeting four of his school friends outside to sing happy birthday. I’m quite friendly with two of the mums. I’ve got an hour and a half to go and choose a supermarket cake and apologise to DS (5 years old) OR style it out. I’ve got fondant dinosaurs to stick round the bottom layer too.

What would you do??

It looks fine, and will look great once it has dinosaurs and candles on. Honestly I'm sure your DS will love it.

Homemade cakes are so much nicer imo.

Haha when i send my dm pics of my dc's homemade birthday cakes she says 'oh' and nothing else! I was actually quite proud of acouple aswell!

@Glay

It's definitely an ice breaker.

definitely a better one than on the first day of nursery in a different school where I didn’t recognise my own son for two excruciatingly long minutes at pick up time.

It is not professional job (sorry) , but it looks like a volcano, especially, to a 5yo and his friends. I am sure it tastes amazing. Enjoy!

A home made cake isn't supposed to look professional. I think some people have had their expectations a bit warped by insanely perfect Instagram cakes! As long as it tastes nice and vaguely resembles the thing it's supposed to, then you're winning. And IMO this far, far surpasses a "vague" resemblance.

I think the cake stand doesn’t help. DS has a dinosaur mat type thing that I might put it on instead, stick the fondant dinos on it and then arrange some of his toy dinosaurs around it too.

Also might take some prosecco and ask the mums to share in my shame

Could stick some broken choc biscuits/oreos, choc clusters, choc balls etc around bottom pr coming down for rocks/boulders in amongst the dinasaurs.

I think it’s fab! Got any edible glitter? Chuck that on as well!

o*

I think he'll love it! You just need one of those giant sparkler candles, and maybe a bit of deeper red - splodges from one of those ready made tubes would be fine.

A lovely friend of mine made a teddy bear cake for a summer birthday. She ended up having to shore it up with multiple breadsticks to prevent an epic teddy landslide in the heat, but everyone at the party thought it was fantastic.

Any comments from the DC "volcanoes looked different back then"

Completely style it out! You could even text the other parents before hand "wait until you see the volcano cake, I may need assistance convincing DS that it's perfect 😂"

Could be a very good bonding experience!

Op I love it. It is much better than any of my efforts and my dc actually say they want a ‘mummycake’ rather than a shop bought cake.

I’m a veteran volcano cake maker. Yours is great, don’t fret. A bit of Betty Crocker chocolate frosting on the white would look great, and I favour Waitrose freeze dried raspberries on top of the lava. You could get one of those firework candles for a real eruption?

It's perfect! And anyone who says otherwise knows nothing about volcanoes and has no idea that they're rugged and messy. Take it and educate everyone!

I'd love to see a photo of the cake were copying or aiming for

I'm sure its delicious.

I’ve just panic bought a big standard Jurassic park cake so DS can decide then.

There was no inspiration it was entirely from my imagination —can you tell— and DS’ insistence that he wanted a ‘proper’ cake for his birthday. After investigation, it turned out a ‘proper’ cake meant a three tier affair!

DH guessed it was a volcano 🌋

Oh no op yours will be so much cooler to all the kids than a supermarket mass produced one! Kids will love how it looks and adults will like the taste better! I'd leave the supermarket one at home.

My kids (now grown up) still look forward to me making a ‘terrible’ cake on their birthdays- it’s a family tradition .

They always taste nice though!

My teenagers love that I always made them a ridiculous homemade cake. Either that or they say they do to make me feel loved so I’m taking it as a win either way. I made a castle that looked like it had 4 dicks poking out of it once and they still think I’m fab. Happy birthday to your ds. I’m sure he will love it.

@Shadedog - . I would love to see that!

It's beautiful. It's magnificent.

This is a stealth boast.

I defy you to find a five year old that doesn't say this is an epic cake.

When the candles are burning it will look fab! I've made some shocking cakes in my time! If mine looked as good as that my kids would be happy 😃

This can be the start of a comedy cake family tradition. You can indulge all sorts of creative whims over the next few years and no one will care what it looks like so long as it tastes amazing. Don’t hide your cake in shame, go down the Prosecco and giggles route.

Brilliant cake - well done! My kids would love it . Very impressive.