The Boy on Top
Bake the cake and granny decorates - Wifeys mum is a wizz at 'sugar craft' and makes some fantastic cakes.
I always made my own. Bought cakes don't taste nearly so good and the making and decorating of it is all part of the build-up to the excitement of the birthday. It's more personal. But I think that it simply wouldn't occur to a lot of people to make instead of buy.
When I was a child, my working-class friends and their families would have thought it was smarter and more of a treat to have a shop-bought cake, whereas the middle-class ones would make the cake. But I'm going back 40 years now and things were immeasurably different.
I wonder if the social aspect of being a paid help is the same as it was a few years ago? I think people are more flexible and relaxed about social status than they used to be - or maybe that's just around here. I have a couple of good friends who do domestic work and they certainly don't feel at a disadvantage socially to their employers. Maybe it depends on how they're treated. I don't feel a social stigma in working as a shop assistant and cheerily lug sacks of potatoes to shoppers' cars. I've a fair bit of social confidence and am not known to feel inferior to anyone - but does anyone nowadays?
Interesting, your class divide comment was where I started my thinking, but our "middle class" acquaintances also buy cake. I'll post more of my thoughts later.
Your last sentence I think says it all. You don't feel inferior, therefor you are not. Perception in the receiver is sometimes the root of prejudice. I also think it is easier to "work down" than "live up".
In our case we go out of our way to make employees feel a part of our lives. Still the roles are very tightly defined. Nannies don't "do" housework and cleaners don't "do" children. Outright slavery is, of course, severely frowned upon... TB
if I had kids I'd make cakes with them and lick the bowl out and leave the mess for the housekeeper!!!!
Lick the bowl! Peach! I've never heard of such a thing, imagine what you'd be teaching the children. I would never consider it... at least not since the weekend, when maybe I stuck a finger in the bowl and encouraged the kids to do the same. I had to clean up the mess in penance... TB
If you've never licked the bowl out well enough to get cake mix in your hair, you are not the Boy I think you are.
Childhood experiences are allowed, but adult ones are more audacious, so more impressive.
I refuse to answer on the grounds it might incriminate me... TB
Caz baked them until Jax was around 12. I ate most of them - is that a surprise?
Baking them is the personal touch and you have to give your kids the personal touch until they reach they age when that becomes embarassing.
Enjoy 'til 13/14!!!
Exactly, and I couldn't possibly comment on who gets the largest portions out of our birthday cakes. TB
When they were younger, I made the cakes, whatever they requested. So we have had:
-individual strawberry shortcakes
-a cake like the cake in The Cat in the Hat (3 layers, pink frosting oozing out from between the layers and the top)
-maple cake with maple buttercream
-checkerboard cake
-My creation: checkerboard cake made with chocolate cake and vanilla ice cream (this was requested several years)
Nowadays, they prefer store-bought ice-cream cakes.
That's OK. I'm ready for a bit of a break. And when they're ready for homemade again, I'll be ready, too!
I like the sound of that checkerboard cake. It is a lot of work doing custom cakes, but worth it I think. We don't really have Baskin Robbins over here, so there's not anything similar. TB
Buy, buy, buy - how can you replicate the 'Powerpuff Girls' flourescent light up cake with integral music player that supermarkets chuck out for a tenner
Probably can't, though LL can chuck out a 3D dinosaur with a day's effort and much f'ing and blinding! Doesn't light up and play music though, so you've trumped me. TB
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