Make Your Own Cake To Jump Out Of

Jump Out Of a Cake

Its Mr PSGCs birthday at the end of January.  Usually we do a party (or parties), but this year our oldest has had horrendous 11+ exams through christmas, and interviews in January for secondary school.  I cant believe we put our 10 year old children through this, but short of moving out of london, we are stuck with the process.

Abbi has been pretty much pushed aside during this time, as we are focussing on Jamie.  She is a sweetheart, and doesn’t complain, but I wanted to do something one on one with her, where she would get all the attention.  She LOVES making things,  so we decided to make a giant cake that she could jump out of for Mr PaintSewGlueChew’s birthday.It was so easy to make, and mainly from recycled cardboard, so barely cost a thing.

Materials:

• 1 Hula Hoop
• Packaging Tape
• Large Cardboard Box
• Glue & Newspaper (optional)
• Brown paper  (or paint)
• Large sheet of white paper
• Decorations

With the exception of the decorations, all supplies came from the £1 shop.

Step 1 – Make the Structure:

First, cut out the cardboard to the size of the hula hoop, before cutting an inner circle big enough to jump through.  Tape the hula hoop to the circle. Cut strips of cardboard, and bend each of them to the hula hoop shape.  This means you will get a nice curve in the cardboard, and not a break.  Once you’ve bent all the cardboard, tape the pieces together and attach secure is a circle.Attach the cardboard to the hula hoop.

Initially we planned to paint our cake – and therefore papier mache´d the joints so that the paint wouldn’t repel the tape. Part way through we decided that this would take too long, and we would just wrap paper around it.  If you plan to do the same, you can commit this step.    And by the way, yes that is a kitchen spatula for applying the glue.  A surprisingly good way of glueing on large papier mache projects.

Step 2: Icing the cake

If planning to paint you cake, do it once the paper mache is dry.  If not – get your dark brown paper and wrap it around the tube, and secure with tape.  This is obviously the “recipe” for a chocolate cake to jump out of – if you go vanilla sponge, or even red velvet cake, vary the exterior colour of your cake to match! Take a large sheet of white paper (I used wallpaper lining paper), and cut a square that exceeds the size of the tube by about 20-30cm.  Wallpaper lining paper is great for crafts, as its so cheap.  It does however yellow very quickly, so not for crafts you want to keep hold of for years to come.  Place the cake in the centre of the square, and draw the hole that you will jump out of.  The circle of the hula hoop isnt uniform, so its worth making marks on the box and the white paper, so that you can easily line them up when you put the white icing on top.O

Once the hole has been cut and the icing lined up on top, make folds or little darts in the paper, so that the white paper hangs down slightly more flush to the tube.  Cut a wavy line around the edge of the white paper, to look like dripped icing.

Step 3: Decorating the Cake

And now we are ready to decorate.  Add strip of white with the bottom edge wavy, to look like icing oozing over the side, and a thin strip of red to look like jam.We added a garland made from metallic create paper – but your can use whatever you fancy.  Little strips or discs of paper could look like sprinkles.Finally we added 6 (don’t ask me why) candles. These were metallic crepe paper wrapped around tissue filled toilet rolls.  Stick to the top of the cake, and add some lit candle pictures.

It took about two hours to bake make the structure, and then another hour or so to “ice” and decorate it.  Then obviously we needed some practice “jumps” before the actual birthday.And after the dress rehearsals, time for the main event.