Baking a Dolly Varden

My sweet little niece recently had her 4th birthday and in our male dominated household of helicopter, pirate ship and digger cakes, I thought it would be a lovely change to bake a Dolly Varden cake for her. Foolishly I thought that this would be much easier than it actually was. It all started out well and I felt quietly confident as I popped the cake into the oven and sat down to drink my tea... after first stopping to admire how nicely my Cornish Ware pudding basin matched the mug... hmm clearly should have been a bit more focused!

Uh oh! Total disaster... husband came to the rescue and opened the bottle of red in the background.

After a glass of red, a bit more oven time and an urgent phone call to sister-in-law seeking advice on where to amputate Barbie's legs. (We went for a full leg amputation). I then wrapped Barbie's pelvis in glad wrap to keep things neat and tidy (ie. no cake inside Barbies bits... that sounds bad but you know what I mean!). The end result was not as catastrophic as I was anticipating. The clothes peg in Barbie's hair was to keep her hair out of the way for icing.

Happy Birthday Miss Zee!