Baking, Builders and Giraffes

So we have been AWOL for a couple of months, but with very good reason. Si decided that we needed to do some major home improvements that started on the 2nd January this year, and we are still only half way through them! I have been without hot water and gas most days, so the baking has had to be put on hold. Boo!!!  Instead I have been focusing on keeping J from climbing the walls, as we are under house arrest most days, industrial scale cleaning and trying to come up with new and exciting ways to use a slow cooker (Si is now fed up with what he calls "one pots")!

It was with relish, that I offered to make a cake for my beautiful twin nieces 2nd birthday earlier this week. On a rare couple of days of having gas and hot water, I managed to make 2 Griaffe cakes. Using the vanilla custard cake that I made for J's 2nd birthday tractor cake, I managed to carve a 2D shape of a giraffe which we mounted on a basic tray lined with foil. This was then iced directly on the tray and then the background was made by dying desicated coconut with green food colouring and then cutting out little yellow flowers to mount on the background. I do have to say it did look quite effective. Here it is:

Now for some reason, the photo will not rotate. But you can still see how it turned out. This is only the fourth novelty cake I have ever made, and I am quite pleased with it. I have aslo realised how much I have missed baking and making. I just hope that we manage to get some more baking done over the next couple of weeks. We will have to watch this space!