Surprise! Despite appearances (or lack thereof), you haven’t seen the last of me 😀

I did miss a whole year… and then some… but we didn’t miss Galentine’s Day last year. The truth is, I was a bit light on photos from the 2023 party and there was a bit of… damage… to the cake. So I felt a bit stink. There. Said it! However… that was a year ago and I think I can live with the memory now that we have had a whole other Galentine’s celebration – complete with intact cake! (P.S. I’ll still post the best photo that I have of last year’s cake at the end for those playing along that far)

There is MUCH to see and share from this years’ Galentine’s celebration, all around the theme of **ORIGAMI** So please enjoy these very themey photos of E’s beautiful paper crane decorations and paper-related games (making head pieces from just paper and a bit of tape) – and did I mention the *handmade crane pinata* that E created?!

And of course, the FOOD: we kept it simple (honest) with some sharp, straight-cut snacks including a blondie slice (I used dried fig instead of apricots in this recipe), geometrically cut tropical fruit and triangular club sandwiches. Geometry was, indeed, in the house.

So this cake!!

A bit of tricky trigonometry on the outside…

… and a surprise on the inside! Not sure if it’s obvious / easy to see that the interior is meant to resemble a paper crane or really any folded paper shape, with the yellow and blue lines representing the folds and sharp-edged centre. It was inspired by an argyle-interior design by Amanda Rettke from her amazing book, and took about as long to execute as it did to decorate the exterior of the cake!

Speaking of: as keen as I was to try out the geometric style, I conveniently forgot how long it takes to cut out many, many small triangles, measuring them all exactly the same size… totally worth it, of course! 😀 The blank canvas was white chocolate ganache (approx 3.5:1 of choc to cream) and the fondant icing triangles were in six different shades/colours of yellow or blue to match the decor. I added a little tylose to the icing but it dried the triangles too quickly so I would leave them without next time. I cut the triangles down to one quarter size to make the mosaic heart topper so that it ended up being a reasonable (not too huge) size.

As I say, worth it for a memorable party on a beautiful day with a great turnout 🙂

If you got this far, as promised, Galentine’s 2023 low-down:

• Butterflies
• More butterflies
• This cake:

Yes, that’s supposed to be a butterfly on the inside!! So I’m well and truly on an ‘interior design’ cake streak 😀 And now that I look at the exterior, I can’t even remember where the accident occurred!

Happy Gal’s Day, past and future xx