When I was twelve weeks pregnant and hormonal with my second baby, I almost cried when the sonographer announced that my estimated due date was one day before my daughter's second birthday. Feelings of guilt that my first born would not only have to share mummy and daddy was now overtaken by even more guilt that they might now even share a birthday. I swore to myself that day that I would never make them share a party and they would always have their own day to celebrate.

As my EDD drew nearer and my daughter's second birthday approaching, I grew more anxious. "Come out soon baby boy, so that you're not born on the same day as your sister, " I pleaded with my growing bump. My obedient son did as he was asked and arrived four days earlier than expected. Also enough time for me to come back home from the hospital to celebrate his big sister's birthday.

The next year flew by, and just as I had promised, we had two separate birthday parties, a very special first birthday party for our little man, and two weeks later, a third birthday party for our little princess. She even got to decorate the rainbow cake she had requested and sugar sculpt the matching cupcakes. So picture this: Put up decorations, take down decorations, put up different decorations. Cook up a storm, clean up after the storm, cook up another storm. Same guests, different menus, different theme. Two cakes. Yes, we needed the two weeks.

I would have really really wanted to tell you that I kept the promise I had made to myself, that I would never make them share a birthday party. But to be honest with you and true to myself, I was only able to keep that promise for one year. Although minutes and hours may tick by slowly, the year flew past and before we knew it, we were planning my daughter's fourth birthday and my son's second. Do we hold two separate parties again or let them share one amazing party? We didn't have to deliberate for too long.

Fast forward yet another year and we come to present day. My daughter is already half a decade old and my son is now three. Being a daughter of cake people, our five year old only wants the latest cakes that are "on trend" and requested a drippy cake with ganache, macarons and meringue. My son gave us two options, Octonauts or superheroes.

Even though I couldn't keep my promise to give them two separate parties, I will keep my new promise to give them two separate birthday cakes... for this year at least 😜.

Please subscribe to our blog to join us on our cake adventures!

I had the pleasure of teaching gorgeous Erin and her friends, sister and cousins the art of cupcake decorating this weekend for Erin's 5th birthday. Parties like Erin's make me feel so blessed to be able to do what I love, and at the same time be appreciated for what I do. It truly isn't "work" when you have so much fun.

Gorgeous Erin with the minion pirate ship cake that her amazing mummy made her!!

Erin originally requested a Frozen themed party, but decided in the end that she really wanted a pirate minion party. Her very clever mummy created a huge pirate ship cake using wafers, chocolate chip cookies and even rice crispies... It was amazing!

I loved how very specific Erin's theme was, and I tailored my Cake Me! kids class to fit the theme. Erin was turning 5, however her nine party guests ranged from 18 months to 8 years of age. So to suit the age group of my students, I designed two 2D minion cupcakes.

Although we kept the class to 2D decorating and not 3D, to show Erin and her friends what they could make with fondant, I also made Erin a teeny tiny sugar sculpted pirate minion to go into the pirate ship cake that her mum made.

Erin and her guests were so excited and couldn't wait to start. They diligently washed their hands and put their aprons and hats on in record time. As usual, I was blown away by the level of fine motor skills and precision that some of these young kids had, and at the same time, the kids were in awe of what they could create. The mums and dads of the younger ones were fantastic and helped guide their children so they could keep up with the older ones. What also made me especially happy was the wonderful feedback from some of the parents there. I was so pleased to be able to break down the barriers and resistance to using fondant for some parents, so I'm really looking forward to seeing some wonderful new creations from these mums and dads in the future!

At the end of the class, all the wonderful cupcakes were boxed in our take home bonboniere boxes. Poor little Erin was frantically searching for the minion she had put so much love into creating for the past ninety minutes. She was trying to fight back tears at the thought that someone else had taken her prized possession. We opened each of the twenty boxes to search for this one minion, and I was so worried that someone else may have accidentally claimed it as their own. I thought Erin would have been heartbroken, she was probably planning on cherishing this minion forever. I felt this huge sense of relief when we eventually located it, and we quickly got a pen and wrote her name on the box. Erin's eyes lit up, almost sparkled from the tears that were welling in her eyes, she grabbed it out of the box and ran to the couch and devoured it.

“Dearest Liz,

Thank you so much for this morning, you run an amazing cupcake decorating class. You are incredible!

I asked Erin if she was surprised that she could make a minion and she said “I always waited for the teacher and did what she said”. You make it seem so simple.

Thank you for such an enjoyable morning and working with our diverse age range!! I want to do it again!!I hope to get into your booking sheet again in a few years for Melanie and Erin!! I had an awesome time making the minion as well!!! I loved seeing the kiddies have fun. Totally sorted out some mummy guilt there!

xoxo”

— Mei-Ling

“Thank you for a great time. It was also a really good learning experience. I didn’t realise rolling fondant was so easy.”

— Amy

Cakes, parties and broken promises.. Confessions of a cake artist.

A one in a Minion party