Celebrating Lily - Fabulous Miss Four!

We had a quiet little birthday dinner for our sweet Lily on Saturday night (a couple days before the actual day) with her requested meal of home made pizzas and of course cake. She had been considering her options and changing her mind for months before finally settling on 'A ballerina cake with pink, silver and gold'. Even in my current state, I was determined to create something special for her!

Mark faithfully collected my very specific list of ingredients. I knew there was no way I would have the energy to actually make a cake and let's be honest, the kid's don't really care about that bit!!! So I focused on 'assembling' rather than 'baking' the cake of my little girl's dreams. Most people have seen a version of the yummy looking KitKat/M&M cake floating around online (especially Pinterest) and as it looked so fun and easy to assemble, I decided to create a White KitKat Ballerina version! It was soooo easy and fun. I totally took the cheat's route but I was happy with the final product!

For anyone keen to make a version of this super high impact/low effort/very fun cake here is what I did/used -

• Bought Woolworth's unfilled double sponge cake (high enough for the KitKats) - filled with fresh whipped cream and jam
• Covered the cake with Betty Crocker White Frosting (yes, I felt crazy decadent buying icing... I mean, really!! But I had to keep it simple). I put pink food colouring in there to turn it pink!
• Assembled White KitKats (using almost 3 family sized blocks) around the edges and tied on the ribbon
• Popped on the ballerina (not quite the delicate pink music-box style I wanted but it did the job!)
• Covered the top in a mountain of mini white and pink marshmallows
• Scattered with tiny silver chocolate balls
• Done. Too easy!

Yes, it took me all day to work up the energy to do it and I was paying for it right after but I got the cake made and I was so excited.

Suffice to say her reaction was worth it....

Her priceless reaction to the cake....

She was soooooo stunned when the cake went out. I swear I saw a tear in her eye... or possibly it was just the tears blurring mine?! Anyway, the girl was happy. Couldn't stop smiling, looking and tentatively touching. It was so gorgeous. After squealing for quite a few minutes she beamingly said 'Thank you Mummy, it was the exact right cake I wanted!!'. Yes, she was very specific this year so I'm glad it met the brief. ;)

We kept the cake on the table during dinner so she could soak it all up while everyone munched on our freshly made pizza. We decided to give a couple presents that night and save the rest for her actual birthday. The main one was a Siamese Fighting Fish. She has been begging for months for a pet (dog, cat, fish, guinea pig, horse, etc) so we decided to start her off nice and easy. I had one myself in my Uni days (anyone remember my little buddy Tolstoy?!) so I know how super low maintainence they are!

Well, she was once again shocked and thrilled! Within a minute she had christened her fish 'Greg' - NO idea where she pulled that one from!!! Funny girl. She and Eli had fun watching him swim around, and she got to feed him and was very excited he gets to live in her room. Just hoping he does not go belly up at least for the first few days!! Hope she enjoys her new little buddy and also gets to learn about taking care of him too.

One much-loved and joy-filled little girl

 

He wanted to get his mitts on that fish SO bad....

We finished off our sweet little birthday celebration with a glowing cake - matched only by the glow on a little girl's face... it was a beautiful night!