My nephew wrote a recipe a few months ago. He had the idea, drew the picture and then dictated the ingredients to his mother. When I went over to visit, he asked me to read out the ingredients he had thought of to see whether it all sounded good as a cake. I thought it sounded great as a cake. But when I had finished the list, Raffi stared off into middle distance, with a sort of distracted-Rittey-male thinking kind of look, turned to me and said, 'Jo Jo, it needs blackberries. Could you add that please.' And I did and, I have to say, having now baked the Pirate Cake, with three layers and not eight, architecture not being my forte and finding myself strangely bereft of the requisite 8 different sized cake tins (call myself a cook...?!)...blackberries were an excellent and, even vital, addition.
It's risky trying to bring an idea to life. Especially an idea imbued with such hearty connotations. A Pirate Cake...well that's up there with Magic Faraway pop biscuits and moon cakes and suchlike. I spent many an afternoon up the pear tree in the back garden in quasi-disbelief that I couldn't reach the lands that swung around at the top of the tree under Enid Blyton's pen, providing escapism and adventure.
A child's imagination, which often has no borders to a child's reality is a precious thing and it was a mission fraught with peril that I embarked upon last weekend.
I think there was a bit of humouring Auntie on the part of the five year old, whose eyes grew wide when he saw it, and who spent quite some time figuring out the best way to cut the cake. But I like to think that there was also a lot of joy that he and I had worked together to produce this fantastical cake. He had the idea and I made it happen.
All in all, we achieved a fairly yo ho ho feat.
Aargh. And all that.
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