The Night Gingerbread Broke Me

The birthday cake that made me face all my failures as a mother.

On the Thursday night before my daughter’s third birthday, I began to consider that I may have bitten off more gingerbread than I could chew.

I wish the gingerbread in question was purely metaphorical, but alas, it was not. Last Christmas, I was caught up in the magic of the season, and one of the things I did with my then two-year-old daughter (E) was making gingerbread. I have always loved making gingerbread. A few years ago, I was given a set of moulds to make 3D gingerbread Christmas trees. I was never very successful at getting the shapes perfect, so the trees stood up on their own, but we had a lot of fun making a very wonky looking forest of Christmas gingerbread trees. I probably should have taken my limited success—with a very easy piece of gingerbread construction—as a warning.

Fast forward a few months, and I had started thinking about planning E’s third birthday. In her mind, the biggest question was obviously what kind of cake I would make. We regularly attend toddler birthday parties, so we’ve seen our fair share of impressive cakes. Castles, monster trucks, cricket pitches, and even the duck cake from Bluey. So, my daughter had high expectations of what was possible.

When she first requested a gingerbread house cake, I thought it was a passing fancy, but to my dismay, each time I asked, the answer came back the same. E knew what she wanted: it was gingerbread or bust. Eventually, I decided to go with the whimsy, and embrace the gingerbread theme. Being the middle of the year, no convenient gingerbread house kits were on hand. Luckily, my friend owned a set of moulds she willingly lent me. Maybe her eagerness to get them out of her house should have been a sign of things to come.