Yesteryear, A Fabulous Cake and Possibly the Best Swimsuit I've Ever Owned...

I could have written a whole post about the cake I bought for my daughter’s birthday, yesterday. It was that good. Too good, really, to have been sitting on the shelf of a high street food hall. Even if the food hall in question is not just a food hall, etc etc.

I saw this cake sitting on the shelf and thought that it had been left there by accident: someone has picked up their made-to-order masterpiece from elsewhere, I thought, possibly some sort of artisan patisserie, and they have come in here and rested it on the shelf while they peruse the labels on the various baked goods, trying to find out which variation of bagel has the most protein in it.

That was the scenario that instantly came to mind. That someone had mislaid their precious fondant-wrapped cargo. But no, when I moved the cake on the shelf to one side, I saw that there was an identical cake of wonder behind it. Two fabulous cakes! Both worthy of a spot on some sort of baking show - Is It Cake? or similar.

I tell you what, compared to the Colin the Caterpillar cakes and the Rainbow cakes and the Raspberry Ripple and Vanilla Sprinkle cakes, which all looked perfectly nice, this wonder cake - the Neopolitan Ice Cream Cake - looked like a work of art. An entire ice cream sundae, rendered completely convincingly from different types of icing, on top of a tri-colour base made to look like an upturned tub. Complete with two full scoops of icing gelato (slightly “melted” at the bottom to add to the authenticity) a swirl of whippy cream (again, icing), some flakes (real) and a drizzle of chocolate sauce, spilling enticingly over the edge.

Ooph.

Eighteen quid, the same price as the (lesser, in my opinion) rainbow and sprinkle and “vintage” birthday cakes. Steep for a supermarket buy, but way less than you’d pay if you had one made to the same specification. Little tip for you, if you’re ever looking for a cake for an eleven year-old’s birthday and have less than eight minutes to choose one because your car park ticket is about to expire and you have no battery on your phone to extend your stay.

So yes, I could have written an entire post about this cake. What a buy! Needless to say the eleven year-old was thrilled and slightly overwhelmed, because Colin the Caterpillar is the default cake in our family and we rarely deviate. (They like arguing over who will eat the solid chocolate face. Loser gets the feet.)

But I have an even better find: this is best swimsuit I’ve ever owned. I’m almost sure of it. I knew it would be a goer when I saw the picture online but then, as I pulled it on and zipped it up (yes, a zip, stay with me) it felt as though I was almost donning some kind of superhero suit. Instant confidence. Everything felt secure and present and correct, in terms of where it should have been sitting (I’m talking tits and tum here), but also the cut managed to feel supremely sexy.

Which is surprising, considering it looks like the sort of thing an Olympic Diving Team might wear. Perhaps this is what they do wear…