My daughter turned 3 a couple of weeks ago (where on earth did those 3 years go?) and I was determined to make her a cake, despite the fact I was drowning in work and social activities.

For those of you who saw my cake last year, you will know that I love baking but hate decorating. I fully accept that this cake looks like a child made it but I had fun, apart from a few mishaps. Also my daughter is older now so a themed cake seemed appropriate.

My daughter loves Duggee (a cartoon on CBeebies) so I decided to base my theme on that, however I wasn’t going to attempt to make Duggee and his squirrel friends out of fondant icing. No thanks. Although my aunt made a Duggee cake and absolutely nailed it. Check it out here – aren’t her cakes incredible?!

My aunt coached me through this and gave me lots of tips and tricks. It’s handy having a professional baker in the family. I decided to make a rainbow out of fondant icing as I felt I could achieve this with my lack of decorating skills.

I bought a large block of white fondant icing from Tesco (and now I have loads left and no idea what to do with it. Whoops.) and coloured 6 small balls of icing using food colouring. Yes my hands looked like a child after painting at nursery.

I then rolled them into long tubes and shaped them around a small cookie cutter, securing them together using a little water and a paint brush.

I later realised that my rainbow was too big for my cake so I had to bake another layer and shorten my rainbow. Doh. I also made a ‘Hey Kaiya’ sign using alphabet stencils and placed them on some plain white fondant. Let’s just say that was fiddly!

After a lot of baking, washing up, smoothing icing and avoiding any meltdowns, I managed to put this cake together. I think it went down well because as soon as I placed it in front of my daughter, she immediately started picking at the icing before blowing the candle out. Kids!

Thanks so much for reading. Have a great day 🙂

My name is Bhavisha Surti and I am a food photographer and stylist based in Milton Keynes. Please subscribe to my blog below and check out my website to see more of my work at www.jbimagery.co.uk. Thank you!