A Gardener’s Birthday

It was my Dads birthday yesterday and he got deservedly spoilt! We had lunch out at a lovely independent garden centre before having a look around at all their goodies. I treated him to a couple of Chillington tools (which we will be reviewing in a future video) and a mug for his shed which has ‘Head Gardener’ on it (he likes to point this out every now and again!)

Another treat was his birthday cake. Now my Dad is very much an allotmenteer, he loves his allotment and spends the majority of his time on his plot. So when it came down to making a cake we just had to make him a little mini vegetable garden!

This was very much a team effort, my Mum was in charge of making the sponge cake and icing it. We used chocolate buttercream for the dirt vegetable beds and green coloured buttercream for the grass pathways. We also brought 2 packets of chocolate fingers to act as a picket fence around the garden which worked really well and tasted nice too!

I was in charge of making the vegetables out of coloured icing, which took me a good few hours might I add! I decided to keep it simple by making easy shapes like the pumpkins and the peas. The cauliflowers and cabbages where made using balls of icing and small circle leaves layered up around the middle ball. The carrots and leeks were a little tricky, I ued white icing for the base of the leeks and then layered on 4 strips of green icing to make the top leaves. The carrots tops were the fiddliest part as they were very small!

To finish it all off I made a small sign using a lollypop stick and a small piece of slate with a simple ‘Happy Birthday’ written on the front. Overall all it took the both of us 4 hours to make and decorate the cake but the look on my Dads face made it all worth it. My Dad was aboslutely over the moon with it and couldn’t believe that we made it! So overall it was a success and my Dad had a splendid Birthday which is all that matters.