Making birthday cakes for Lucas and Dave are two of the highlights of my baking year.  It’s really important to me that everyone has just the right birthday cake, whether it’s a complete surprise or an begged for cake.  I remember Mum making the birthday cakes of our dreams every year, so I happily carry on that tradition with Lucas.

Last week Lucas turned three and as he is a dinosaur-obsessed little boy, he asked for a dinosaur cake.  A few days later he said that he wanted a bouncy dinosaur cake, sending me into hysterical visions of carving a cake out of jelly and buttercreaming the whole thing!  Thankfully he eventually settled on a non-bouncy Triceratops cake.

I carved two double-chocolate pound cakes (1kg loaf, 1.5kg loaf) into the requisite shape, leaving a ledge all around the base to add grass, giving the impression that Triceratops was walking along happily.  The bulk of the detail was in the face, so I spent quite a lot of time making sure everything was symmetrical.  Little sausages of fondant glued on with buttercream were really helpful for making the face more realistic—that’s how I made the ridge above the eyes and added a bit more shape to the face.  The horns were made from cream flowerpaste that I allowed to harden before attaching.  The frill was really important to get right so I measured around the neck and cut out a strip of fondant/flowerpaste (50/50 blend) and pinched it into the right shape. After it had dried for a while I glued it in place and propped it with some wadded up kitchen paper.  The finishing touch was to pipe some tufts of grass all the way around Triceratops and randomly across the board.

Judging from Lucas’s reaction, it was a total hit!  I added the baby T-rex from his favourite bedtime book “Say Hello to the Dinosaurs” to the board and made a dinosaur nest  to complete the Cretaceous Period look.  (I love to decorate the cake board to set off the cake, it makes such a difference.)

This cake was such fun to put together and much easier than I’d anticipated!  It’s by no means perfect but I’m improving all the time and Lucas loved it which is all that really matters.  Speaking of the birthday boy, here he is in his alter ego of Batman!

Happy birthday, wee man. Mummy loves you!