Spaghetti For A Birthday

Can you spot the cake in this photo?

Yes! Yes! It’s that plate of ‘spaghetti with meatballs’ right in the middle! It’s the perfect follow-up to my pizza cake last time, thanks to Munchkin Mommy who gave me the idea.

Only from up close does it become apparent that it’s cream instead of spaghetti and chocolate balls instead of meatballs.

I started off by baking a strawberry cake recipe that has previously passed my kids’ taste test. Then I whipped up a batch of creamy white frosting that held up its promise of not melting in the heat, put in a couple of drops of yellow food colouring into the frosting, then piped it into long ‘noodles’ using a plastic (sandwich) bag whose end I snipped off with scissors. I couldn’t find my round icing nozzle, you see, so I had to improvise, making the ‘pasta’ look more like linguini instead of spaghetti.

For the ‘spaghetti sauce’, several websites give different recommendations ranging from puréed strawberries to strawberry jam. I first thought of going with puréed strawberries but the result did not look realistic enough. And so I improvised once more. I melted a tablespoon of butter in a saucepan, put in a few tablespoons of brown sugar, added the puréed strawberries, kept adding sugar until I achieved the sweetness that I wanted, then let it cool before pouring it on top of the iced cake.

For the finale: Ferrero Rocher as the meatballs. I realise now that I should have put in more ‘meatballs’ because the kids just went ga-ga over it!

RoundBoy — the ecstatic birthday boy — enjoyed the surprise. He wanted to stand over the cake and pretend to devour it, then changed his mind and asked me to shoot it with him at the side because he was afraid he might drool over the cake ;)

My only problem now? What cake to make next?! My OnlyGirl’s birthday is coming up in two weeks’ time and this cake has raised her expectations. Help!!!