everso... sweet!

And while we're on the subject of my daughter, it was her birthday yesterday and somehow it all turned a bit Parisian.  Which is nice.

The Paris wrapping paper was hand-stamped using a wonderful rubber stamp set.  In the background, completely obscured from view, is a vintage Eiffel Tower bottle (trust me) and in the foreground there's a tower-shaped Christmas decoration.  All three of these things, along with half the contents of my house, came from here:  http://www.decorativecountryliving.com/  and if you haven't visited, you really should.

This little masterpiece was all my own work.  Yep, it's a cake.  It was actually pretty simple.  I made a large rectangular chocolate sponge, waited for it to cool, carved it into an approximation of the Eiffel Tower and covered it in good quality white chocolate (melted, obviously).  While that was setting, I covered the board in chocolate and hand painted it with diluted food colouring.  The idea was a kind of vintage Paris sunset.   I mixed up some silvery grey butter icing and piped on the details and then finished the tower with edible silver shimmer spray, like this: http://www.oetker.co.uk/oetker_uk/latest_news/new_products/shimmer_spray_silver.html

et voila!  It's quite bizarre, spray painting a cake, but I could get used to it.  I'll be like.... the Banksy of baking.