Samuel has his Ice Hockey Cake

I am glad I was able to upload my blog yesterday early as I was tied up all day and only got home around 19:30, very very tired.

Annikki had an interesting day as among the visitors to see Hilja on her 85th birthday was her son from Tampere and her daughter, Aino, and her husband who live here in Oulu. The daughter, Anneli, who lives in Masala, near Helsinki, could not come but sent a card and also money for us to buy flowers. There were plenty of flowers. One daughter and one son did not make any form of appearance to greet their mother on this historic occasion!!

I return, however, to last Sunday, when Samuel had his birthday party for his friends, one week late, as last week was skiing holdilay week and most kids go off to the ski resorts around Finland.

Samuel had asked grandma Anniki for a cake which was an ice hockey field. He had told Annikki that maybe she could use cream on top of the cake as the ice hockey field. But grandma had other ideas!!

She poured some fizzy clear drink, (Sprite) into a tray and stuck it out of the window. It was well well below zero. Within 15 minutes she had a beautiful sheet of solid frozen sprity ice!!

She placed this on top of the cake which had a filling of delicious orange curd (similar to lemon curd - but Annikki's own creation), surrounded the whole cake with cream. Between the cake and the ice she placed the field outlines, circles, and other things you normally find on the ice hockey field. I had to educate her on this as Annikki is not much clued up about any sports field!! On top of the ice she used various types of delicious sweets to create the men, the hockey sticks, the goal posts and the referee. She seated a whole array of spectators (manínly girls) around the field in the cream.

I was delegated to take the cake to Samuel's house. I was scheduled to arrive at 16:15. I did, and it was my task to actually create the top layer from all the things chosen by Annikki. Of course, butterfingers broke the ice on the way, but I managed to keep most of it intact and patched up most of the damage.

Samuel's 8th birthday party, twins Elias and Konsta (7 mins),
twins Kasper and Kaius (4 mins), Veli-Matti and Samuel

It was a couple of hours laters that the kids decided they wanted to partake of the goodies that Joanna had laid out for them. the ice was still very much there (broken ice was self-healed!!).

The kids were fascinated by the ice hockey field. After the singing of happy birthday in both English (led be me) and Finnish, the kids attacked the ice hockey cake, except they did not touch the cake as they demolished the sweets and the ice hockey field - kids like nothing better than stuffing ice cubes into their mouth, and it is great when it is a fizzy drink that they like.

Annikki, Samu and myself ate a bit of the cake, but I brought back most of it.

I told Annikki that if she ever gets another demand for an ice hockey cake there is no need to create the cake - she would only need to create the ice and the field!!