This year, June is a month of celebrations for our family. Therefore, at the beginning of the month, my husband and I together with Flora, travelled to Malta to join in the family celebrations. Both my parents celebrated their birthdays during the first week of the month and my brother got married last weekend.
This year, my father celebrated his 60th birthday. My mother has been wanting to surprise him with a small family gathering since last year. So for the past weeks we have been organising a surprise party at my parents’ house. We invited the guests, ordered some food and got some drinks behind my father’s back, and on the day we set up everything while he was not at home. 🙂
For this special celebration, I wanted to bake the cake myself, and decorate it too! I never baked a layered cake before and never decorated anything similar. But I wanted it to be special. I also wanted it to be a surprise for my mother since she was celebrating her birthday as well. But I had to tell her that I was baking the cake myself so she would not order one with the other food items. She asked a lot of questions about what my cake plans were and I had to be very careful not to give away too much information.
I decided to follow Cupcake Jemma’s Madeira cake recipe and decorate it with sugarpaste. I baked two 12″ layers, filled it with white chocolate ganache and homemade strawberry jam and covered it with white chocolate ganache before putting the sugarpaste on.
In terms of decorations, I split the cake in half, one side for my father and the other for my mother. My father likes birds a lot and I always remember him with a couple of them at home, so I decided to create a bird and a nest with little ones in it. On the other hand, my mother likes sewing and I created spools of thread and some buttons. Needless to say, my parents were really surprised as they never expected that it will be decorated in such a personalised manner.
It may not be perfectly finished but I am super happy with the result and with how the sugarpaste decorations turned out. Everyone complimented my cake and having done such job for the first time, I feel very proud! 😀
As the saying goes, all is well that ends well and I am really thrilled that my parents enjoyed the party, the food, the company and above all the surprises. 😀
HI Marica, this looks lovely, and I love the idea of the cake split into two. Well done!
Thanks Roberta ☺