Bag End in Frosting

"In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole...it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort." -J.R.R. Tolkien

Every year, when Jonah's birthday comes around, he starts contemplating what his birthday cake will look like. He elicits the help of his sister to put on paper the lavish design he has concocted in his head.

Since his latest obsession is all things Hobbit, he naturally wanted a Hobbit cake. He basically wanted an entire map of Middle Earth as a birthday cake. He wanted the Shire and Rivendell and Erebor all represented in full detail. I reminded him that the medium we had to work with here was not oils but in fact tinted frosting. This fact hardly dissuaded him. 

We finally talked him down to a cute cake bearing a fine representation of Bag End with the Lonely Mountain looming in the distance. Jessica sketched up a nice model for us.

Back in my motherhood glory days, I would let each child pick out a special cake pan for their birthday, and I would spend hours mixing countless colors of frosting and piping tiny stars onto their custom cake. I have lovely photos to document those glory days. But I have since retired from being a cake-decorator-extradorinaire and have passed my piping bags over to my oldest daughter, mainly because everyone likes to design their own cakes now. Each child seems to demand a frosting-generated Picasso these days, and I know my limits. So Jessica is now the official cake decorator. She will appreciate the skills when it is time for her day in the sun as a mother.

We make a nice little team. I mix the frosting and all of the colors and fill the piping bags and hand them off to Jessica as she creates a culinary Rembrandt atop a Betty Crocker canvas. Jonah wanted a piece of the action, since this was after all, his cake and his design. He likes to do the little white stars along the bottom of the cake.

In the end, we end up with a messy kitchen, stained hands, and Voila, a frosted masterpiece!

I think Bilbo himself would be pleased with such a fine representation of this little hole he calls home. I may even have a slice or two leftover in the fridge if he needed a little something for second breakfast.

If Bilbo would not have been pleased, I know one little boy who seemed very pleased. 

These cakes are labors of love, and it hurts to cut into them, after so many hours of work. But I have pictures to document these little works of art created in the minds of my children and transformed into yummy pastries. They have come to represent the passions of my children over the years, and are worth every ounce of effort.