Make Your Own Cake To Jump Out Of

Ta Da! Havent you always wanted to jump out of a cake?   Maybe its just me then.


Its Mr PSGCs birthday at the end of January.  Usually we do a party (or parties), but this year our oldest has had horrendous 11+ exams through christmas, and interviews in January for secondary school.

Cant believe we put our 10 year old children through this, buts short of moving out of london, we are stuck with the process.

Abbi has been pretty much pushed aside during this time, as we are focussing on Jamie.  She is a sweetheart, and doesntnt complain, but I wanted to do something one on one with her, where she would get all the attention.

She LOVES making things,  so we decided to make a giant cake that she could jump out of for dads birthday.

It was so easy to make, and mainly from recycled cardboard, so barely cost a thing.

It took about an hour to "bake" the structure, and then another hour or so to ice and decorate it.

Abbi is doing a cake decorating party for her 9th birthday, so if it lasts that long, we will use it for that.

This is the method for making the cake.

The materials we used were:


1 hula hoop
Packaging tape
Large Cardboard Box
Glue & Newspaper
Brown paper
Decorations

With the exception of the decorations, all supplies from the £1 shop.

1. Cut out the cardboard to the size of the hula hoop

2. Cut an inner circle big enough to jump through.  Tape the hula hoop to the circle.

3.  Cut strips of Cardboard, and bend to the hula hoop shape.

4.  Cut enough strips to go all the way around..................with oldest son doing 11+ exams, I would love to tell you We did pi x D, to get the correct length...but of course we didn't.

Bit of trial and error to get to fit.  Luckily I had a huge box that I got from a shop selling hairdresser chairs.

5. Wrap all the way around the circle, and tape.

6. We had planned to used another hula hoop around the bottom to give me stability, but didnt actually need it.  Fairly sturdy as it is.

7, 8 & 9.  We did a couple of layers of papier mache  (we had planned to paint the box, and wanted a nice smooth finish), but as we ended up wrapping in paper, these eteps could be dropped.  We used a kitchen spatula for applying the glue.  It was a great way of getting lots of glue for large papier mache projects.

10. I wrapped the "cake" in brown paper for chocolate, then took large sheets of white paper (I use wallpaper lining paper for things like this, as its really think, but cheap)  I cut a rough shape of white icing, and a hole to jump through before adding to the cake.

11. The circle is not uniform, so its worth marking on the box and the white paper, so that you can easily line them up when you put the white icing on top.

12. Add folds around paper to make it sit flattish against the body of the cake.

13. Trim to look like dripping icing.

14. We added a strip of white cream, and red jam.

15.  Decorate however you want.  We added a garland, and then 6 candles made from tubes of paper covered in crepe paper and paper flames.


We intended to add a layer of white tissue with Happy Birthday Dad written on it, but I forgot to get some before the birthday. It worked pretty well any.

Needless to say Mr PSGC loved it.