Sputnik cakes

Last Thursday was Sputnik's 50th birthday. My esteemed colleague Dr Lynley Wallis demonstrated the depth of her friendship and her love of space hardware by making a batch of special sputnik cakes, that were consumed by participants at our cultural heritage masterclass that afternoon.

It turns out it's not so easy to make pictures of rockets and satellites with stupid kiddie icing tubes and chocolate sprinkles. My esteemed colleague was most incensed when I opined that her home-made rocket stencil looked more like a turtle than a V2, and there was a free-hand star that resembled a dog .... however recognising that my access to cake was being put at risk by this somewhat negative commentary, I refrained and assisted her in making lopsided moons and sputnik shapes that looked like sea urchins on a bad hair day.

Kelly Wiltshire took a spifflicatingly good photo (see right). They were most splendid cakes and I think that Nicey (from A Nice Cup of Tea and A Sit Down) would have approved.