{"id":4382,"date":"2013-02-19T21:40:49","date_gmt":"2013-02-19T21:40:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thesojournseries.com\/bavaria\/?p=4382"},"modified":"2013-05-27T05:36:38","modified_gmt":"2013-05-27T05:36:38","slug":"eight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.thesojournseries.com\/bavaria\/eight\/","title":{"rendered":"Eight – Owl Cake Pops"},"content":{"rendered":"

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A little late to the cake pop party perhaps?\u00a0 Some might say they are a bit pass\u00e9, but if you are newly eight, and think they are the best thing ever (having recently had a go at making them at a friends birthday party), you are not going to care about that…\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Being brand new to “year eight” also means that you can also get your Mother to do the bits you don’t really want to do, and avoid getting your hands dirty…<\/p>\n

I had wondered how I had gotten off so lightly in the birthday cake department this year… There were no Studio Ghibli nightmares<\/del> recreations<\/a> to have to deal with, just a straight forward chocolate cake request. \u00a0\u00a0 Simple enough you might think, until I suggested straight forward chocolate cupcakes to take into class after half term (as is the done thing).\u00a0\u00a0 “No thank you” came the reply.\u00a0\u00a0 “I actually would really quite like cake pops shaped like owls”.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 OK then.\u00a0\u00a0 I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised, given the slight Harry Potter and Hedwig fixation the (now) Eight Year old has always had, but I did have to wonder how on earth these “owl shaped cake pops” were going to take shape.\u00a0 But do you know what?\u00a0 I needn’t have worried, they kind of made themselves…<\/p>\n

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This next bit is up to you.\u00a0 You could be really virtuous and make your own cake, but to be honest I found the whole idea of baking cakes only to smash them into smithereens slightly depressing, so we bought a couple of brick shaped marble cakes to decimate, and made our own chocolate butter-cream to bind.\u00a0 You don’t need much mind, just enough to meld together in one great big lump.\u00a0 And when that’s ready, get your scales out and divide into little round bird-bodied balls, put them on a baking sheet, and stick them in the fridge for half an hour.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 When they’ve firmed up a little, you could stick in some lollipop sticks to make them look really professional, or (having not had the time to search the whole of Germany for them), you could consult your inner Blue Peter presenter (who at this point was yelling “improvise, improvise, improvise”) and just use cut up straws instead.\u00a0 I would also recommend using a little of the left over butter-cream to help cement the straw\/sticks in place by the way, and to secure your owl’s chocolate drop ears accordingly, then stick them back in the fridge for at least an hour.\u00a0\u00a0 After this you only need melt some chocolate, coat them lovingly, and then and spend the next half hour pulling everything out of the kitchen drawers in a panic as to what you can use for beaks and eyes when it’s Sunday and all the shops are closed.\u00a0\u00a0 Thankfully, we managed to find a few decorations that sufficed, ignoring any suggestions from the Five Year old that the owls now looked like angry bird pigs.\u00a0 At this stage, they did.<\/p>\n

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And here they are.\u00a0 Finally looking a little more bird like (OK not that much), and about to fly into school.\u00a0\u00a0 Yes, I know a lot of them look like they need to go to Specsavers, but that’s what happens when you have enthusiastic helpers armed with cocktail sticks drenched in food colouring.\u00a0 Some of these owls are quite frankly lucky that they have the gift of sight at all…<\/p>\n

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Anyway, Happy birthday my beautiful girl.\u00a0\u00a0 Like every year, I can’t believe quite how old you are, and quite how much you’ve grown. \u00a0 Although I was reminded of your advancing years, by this – your very first letter of complaint filed earlier in the day. \u00a0 I am only sorry that you didn’t sign off “Disgruntled of Munich”.\u00a0 I do worry about my future sometimes (this might be one of those times!):..<\/p>\n

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And like almost every single year, including that on which you were born, it snowed on your special day.\u00a0 And although I have had a belly full of it now, I was glad.\u00a0 It really wouldn’t have felt right otherwise.<\/p>\n

A report on a birthday outing involving olympic sized sledging hills will follow shortly…<\/p>\n

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