Saturday 23 November 2013

Saturday Snapshot - a trip down sweet, sweet Memory Lane

My mum was the proud owner of the Australian Women's Weekly Children's Birthday Cake Book.

Our childhood birthday's were made memorable by the cakes mum made from this book. She usually managed to match the theme of the cake to the present being given that year or to a particular interest one of us had at the time.

Unfortunately I don't seem to have photos of all the cakes and all the birthdays, but the few I found brought a great big, sugary smile to my lips!

Recently AWW brought out a revised, vintage look edition of this famous cookbook, so that modern generations of Australian children can also enjoy train, caterpillar, humpty dumpty and swimming pool cakes.

Thanks to Shannon at Giraffe Days for the prompt with today's post. 
She recently reviewed the AWW Big Book of Beautiful Biscuits from her childhood here.










The horseshoe cake mum made for me when we moved from coast to country.
I was in Year 8 at highschool and this was my farewell party.
I love seeing my old tape recorder on the side - because no teenage party is complete without music!

My sisters carried on the tradition with their kids when they were little (below). 

My stepsons were too old for theme cakes by the time I entered their lives, so, sadly, I missed this fun baking phase. Although I did manage to get one soccer themed cake into the picture!






This post is linked to Saturday Snapshot & AusReading Month.

14 comments:

  1. What a great post! We had that book too. Although I don't remember as many cakes. I do remember the swimming pool cake- my mother made an oval dish of green jelly and put freddo frogs in it. We thought it was the best cake ever. I reckon she did too. I think I had at least two of the same dresses as your family did.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes - mum made all our clothes too. Our mother's probably used the same Simplicity patterns Louise :-)

      Delete
  2. You're so lucky to have those photos of you and your birthday cakes! Sadly, I have none, although I certainly had the birthday cakes :) and my mum made my dresses too.

    ReplyDelete
  3. What a wonderful tradition! Great photos, too, Brona! The children are adorable.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I really loved looking at these priceless photos. The cakes look awesome and so do all you kids! BTW, I see the same table in some of the pictures. Liked that!!

    Thanks for sharing!!

    Here is my snapshot post.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That little coffee table was a big part of our childhoods - it not only held all our birthday cakes, it was also how we learnt to walk - by turning it upside down and holding onto the legs :-)

      Delete
  5. Thank you for sharing your photos. What great memories. I tried to do that too with my children. Sadly mother's today don't do much baking. I loved seeing you and your siblings in the photos.

    ReplyDelete
  6. That is a fun tradition! Love all the pictures and memories!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Great photos! I always enjoyed the kids' cakes, too, although I must admit I often bought one. That tape recorder takes me back...lol.

    Here's MY SATURDAY SNAPSHOT POST

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. My youngest stepson (now 13) was looking at the photos with me as I was selecting the ones for this post. He couldn't get over how old everything was and wanted to know how we managed that!! Trying to explain that 30-40 years ago those pieces of furniture were not old - they were new and high-tech and the latest thing & that in 30 years time his kids will be asking him the same question about his old iphone 4!!

      Delete
  8. Those pictures and cakes are awesome!

    ReplyDelete
  9. These are terrific! Your mother was quite the artist -- both in cakes and photographs.

    Joy's Book Blog

    ReplyDelete
  10. I love the photos. All the cakes look so lovely. Your mum was so clever. My favourite one is Humpty Dumpty.

    ReplyDelete

I know that blogger comments can be a pain, but I do love to hear from you. Please log onto a google account to make it as easy as possible.

All spam & anonymous comments will be deleted and comment moderation is in place for most posts.