The Nosh's 1st Birthday Balloon Cake

I'm so pleased with how the Nosh's birthday cake turned out. It wasn't too tricky, well, certainly not as fiddly as the pirates ship which I made for the Bubela.

The balloon cake comprised of two 7" circular sponge cakes placed on top of eachother (Nigella Lawson's victoria sponge recipe). I severed the top with a sharp knife to make a dome shape.

Using Royal Icing (ready made) and a half a teaspoon of blue dye, I kneaded it until it was even coloured. Then I rolled it out large enough to cover the whole cake. I'd never iced a cake using royal icing before so it took a couple of attempts to pick it up using the back of a rolling pin, but I got there in the end.

I reserved some of the icing to make the little bow thingy at the end of the balloon and covered three cookies (also Nigella's cookie recipe) for the smaller balloons.

A proud little mama had lovely compliments on the day, not to mention my lovely little "A" Cookies! Take a look.

Now, with a cupboard full of cakes and biscuits and fingers that magnetise to them, I had to buy something to divert my attention. With me its either tea and biscuits or knitting and needles.

This weeks Women's Weekly Knitting and Crochet special have one of Lois Daykin's gorgeous crochet kitten patterns. I've always admired the wonderful Japanese Amigurumi (the wonderful art of crocheted toys), but I've always shyed away thinking I couldn't possibly. Nevertheless, even though I'm a self taught crochet-er with only a couple of stitches under my belt, I went ahead and put hook to Rowan Cotton Glace.

I've already stumbled across a problem dc2tog (eeek!!). I've done something, not sure what though, oy vey. Maybe I've created a new stitch, or maybe somehow actually managed the dc2tog... who knows?