But then there is a glowing light, for us this year Squash’s year decided to have a year 6 Christmas British bakeoff, the instructions were very simple, bring in a cake or a biscuit or anything that means Christmas that can be eaten (just no nuts! and please provide a list of ingredients just in case of other alleges ), the children could work in pairs or on their own.
In reality, it meant can all the mums and dads let the loved ones free in the kitchen or bake the bloody cake yourself and pretend they did it (and remember these are 10- 11year olds, looking at a couple of the cakes the usual suspect parents once again sent their kids in with standards Paul Hollywood would give 10 out of 10 for adult baking).
So it began, after a week of looking at different designs persuading squash that his baking skills are as close to zero as zero, we spent Saturday (after getting the siblings out the way) coaching, showing and helping him Bake (well G did whilst I cleaned up around them as I’m the cook and she is the baker of the family).
Somehow they managed to get the first bake on before the tapping on the door as Grandma (slightly traumatized with the other 3 although we did give her some hope by sending them all to the cinema to watch Frozen 2) opened the door to 3 sugar-induced hyper children and they ran in.
Now I & G are Londoners but 3 children speaking at 100mph telling you the story of the film in 3 different ways with 3 different endings was (as my wife would say) EPIC, and I still do not have a clue about the film. this is where suddenly Tibbius sees the baking and ASBO comes in with a big grin and demands to make a cake (now our loveable ASBO has two other nicknames, both due to his similar looks of famous people, one being the now current PM Borris if we let his hair grow wild and the other the famous chef Gorden Ramsey and as our ASBO has anger issues his inner chef came out)
So we now had a kitchen with two cakes in the oven form Squash, Tibbius being shown how to make a cake by Grandma (all be it with a large glass of Lambrusco) and Chef ASBO Ramsey telling mummy what he was going to do and how he was going to do it (we have high hopes for ASBO firey chief or leader of the country) and it was his way or no way.
At this point, Tiddley seized the moment to cry out “I want to make Christmas biscuits” FFS went through all our heads, the kitchen was covered in flour dust as I gave up trying to keep the kitchen clean with the two other boys mixing and weighing and I started feeling sick due to the amount of uncooked mixture I was tasting.
Alexa alarm rang out this meaning Squshes Cake, after a few time adjustments we got the first cake out and wow! looked good tasted fantastic, the second, however, had sunk but it was workable.
Saturday ended with Cake for lunch and Cake for dinner (and still Tiddley whining about the bloody biscuits!) cake for supper.
After rugby on Sunday morning, it was decorating the cake time a very tired muddy Squash (we had to use the back door and hose him down first and the state of the bath!) wanted to do a full-on white Christmas wooden village on a hill effect, once he realized the cream cheese icing (yes cream cheese) was yellow he used his artistic license to create the perfect children’s Christmas sweet-toothed of fun cake, with sprinkles, glaze cherries, candy canes, ginger thins, cake decorations, and the crowning glory fairy lights!
Getting to school was a challenge and boy was the cake heavy but we made the mile without any slip-ups, on entering the class all the teacher’s mouths dropped as they saw the size of the cake and its design, “Wow” was the humming among Squashes peers, and we had a look at the competition.
There was a room full of treats, creative cakes, chocolate roll and spiced biscuits the room was full of Christmas cheer, a massive amount of work had gone into creating all these wonderful bakes and all the kids (and their helpers plus the Paul Hollywood effort) deserved a round of applause, but as for the winner, we had to wait for 3.15…
Well let’s just say Squash turned up waving the golden spoon, half his classmates cheering him on and because of it he shared his winnings of chocolate with them and I do believe mummy did a victory dance around the board room whilst in a meeting.
As promised the link to the wonderful cake recipe we followed
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/recipes/0/white-birthday-cake-with-cream-cheese-frosting/
