Ben's first birthday cake *UPDATED*

*You will now find a picture of Laura in action at the end of this post*

It was my very special friend Laura's son Ben's first birthday this weekend and Laura wanted to create a very special cake for him. She camped at my house for the whole day and inbetween feeding toddlers and calming tears (Ben and Eloise's not our own...) we created this great cake.

The cake was a traditional birthday cake - vanilla sponge with buttercream and jam filling. We then covered the cake in coloured fondant and added brightly coloured presents the whole way around the bottom tier and B E N nursery blocks and yellow stars on the top tier. On the very top we placed a '1' candle circled by more stars. An iced green board and red ribbon finished the look. That summary makes it sound easy but we estimate we spent 10 hours working on this cake!

Laura was an excellent student and did most of the work herself. Her finest hour was hand carving the BEN letters freehand (and she didn't crack under the pressure despite my trash talk!)

Ben liked it so much he didn't even bother using his fingers - he just stuck his whole face into his slice! Happy birthday Ben!