Tonight I started making some of CJ’s 2nd birthday cake.

We’ll be moving house around the same time as his birthday, so I decided it will be easiest to spend a bit more time on the decorations up front to make making the cake easier later.

I love pottering away on little projects like this.

My Mum made amazing birthday cakes when I was little. She had a real art of making amazing cakes with a beautiful simplicity.

I know the clean designs and ability to deliver artful icing at speed were no doubt a necessity of having 3 young boys, but her skill and vision still inspire me many years on.

This cake will no doubt take me much longer than those cakes took her, but somewhere inside me there’s still a small boy who wants to recreate the magic of my mum’s childhood cakes to the very best that I can.