Doctor Who Birthday Cake

Well it appears that I  can't do things the easy way and for my mother's birthday I decided to make her a TARDIS as she is a long term Doctor Who fan. Now if you have no idea what I am talking about the TARDIS is the time travel ship the Doctor uses to travel the universe through space and time.

I did a bit of research online to see some examples of how others had attempted this task and found some great ones and some not so great ones, in the end I decided to make the TARDIS 3D.

As you know I have a very active 1yr old boy who needs to be watched constantly .... just this morning, while I was looking at a catalogue and in the space of one page he had gone from being on the floor playing to STANDING next to the TV on the entertainment unit. A definite heart in your mouth moment.

Because of this active little boy, I decided to buy a slab cake from the baker instead of baking myself as I just didn't have the time. This is a decision I later regretted.

So early on Tuesday morning I collected the cake from the bakery, I didn't even give thought to how I would fit it in my car with a car seat in the middle of the back seat, oh well I know better for next time. It survived the trip with a little damage in the middle.

Why do I regret buying a slab from the baker and not baking my own cake?

1.  The cake was uneven, I expected a much better result from a professional which would have made the construction easier.

2.    The cake was made out of sponge, which had I thought about it harder was and is not a suitable medium for what I was making.

I then proceeded to cut the slab up, I had decided to make a tower of 7/8 13cmx13cm squares to get the police box shape. Now had I thought harder about the material I was working with I may have change course and constructed the cake a different way, but in my sleep deprived state I stuck with the first idea and paid the price in the end.

I'm quite proud of how I managed to carve the top of the TARDIS as the sponge was very crumbly.

So far so good, I have made the police box and have gotten the first layer of icing on. I put the cake in the freezer overnight very happy with how things were progressing.

Wednesday morning I took the cake out of the freezer to get back to room temperature so I could work with it in the afternoon, while I was having a little quiet time with Kallum, my husband came home to tell me the cake was on it's side .... he says he's never seen me move so fast!!!!! After some magical work with skewers I put the cake back into the freezer to reset. This is where I really regretted not baking a heavier cake myself.

This little side trip meant that all of my more elaborate decorating ideas to complete the cake went out the window. It was going to be a minor miracle to have the cake ready for when Mum got home from work.

In the end I did some basic piping to put some detail on the cake but I couldn't really do anything to fix the wobbly look of it. Every touch to the cake could have resulted in a complete collapse.

ultimately it didn't matter, Mum loved the cake and she loved it even more when I suggested that the TARDIS was still in a state of flux between time and space dimensions that's why it looked so wobbly (not because it was about to fall apart at any time).