How to Make a Stickman Cake

We’ve had a third birthday this week. We had a seventh one too last week but Boo said she wanted a smarties cake which is easy to do.

G wanted Stickman. He loves the book Stickman by Julia Donaldson. It has really sparked his imagination and I have read it to him that many times that I can recite it off the top of my head. I also wrote an alternative version if you would like to read it, here.

I realised a chocolate Swiss roll was the way to go for the actual cake and I had a small window to make it while the children were eating breakfast.

I had the egg and sugar creaming in the stand mixer while I fed the baby. Then I plied him with a tangerine (small bits take longer to eat) while I folded in the rest of the mixture.

I tidied the kitchen for the ten minutes it took to bake and then, did what it said in the recipe and rolls it warm with greaseproof paper and a tea towel.

It ended up like this.

I had no other option but to buy one. I had run out of time and do you know what? As a lovely baking expert put it to me, ‘Emma, you have three little ones and a baby goat’ and do you know what? I do.

The wrong Swiss roll did not go to waste. Like most things here, someone will always want to try my wonky baking.

So off I went and bought a chocolate Swiss roll from my local supermarket and set about icing.

I whipped up a big batch of chocolate buttercream, smeared some onto a work top saver and dyed some desiccated coconut green for grass.

I then roughly spread the rest of the buttercream onto Stickman’s body and used Matchmakers for arms.

I had already made the eye out of piped icing and let it dry out a bit before adding a pupil and positioning it on the cake.

The smile was next and the number 3. I had intended to write G’s name but I decided to quit while I was ahead. The cake disaster was enough of a fail for one day.

I think it is important as a blogger to share the failures as well as the successes with you. I am human after all.

The most important critic though was the birthday boy and what did he think?

So homemade or shop bought Swiss roll, my Stickman cake was a hit.