I used to lash on massive amounts of buttercream and as many sweets as I could get to adhere.
I did occasionally try to be more creative - one year, for their joint party in the summer, I did three pizza cakes - one layer of Victoria spong, red buttercream, dyed green desecrated coconut as herbs, ham, mushrooms and peppers made out of fondant, grated yellow fondant for cheese, and some candied pineapple pieces.
Another year I did an oblong cake, iced in dark blue fondant, with a NASA rocket on it - that was fun because the blue food colouring made the boys’ poo green - they were well impressed.
I did once create a locomotive with two wagons full of smarties, out of supermarket cake, Swiss roll and Jammie Dodgers for wheels - and it was the right gauge to fit on the Duplo railway track. The buttercream didn’t want to stick, though, so I was up until the middle of the night pasting it on, filling the holes, and swearing as it fell off again.
My favourite cake is coffee cake with coffee icing. We stop at a farmshop called Mainsgill, on the A66, when we go to see ds1 and family, and they do a gorgeous coffee cake, filled with whipped cream and iced with coffee icing. It isn’t terribly diet friendly, but sometimes I decide I don’t care!