Show-off post: Eurovision Party Cake

Tonight, they are screening the Eurovision finals in Australia, which means it’s time for a Eurovision party!

Of course, everyone knows that a proper party requires food, preferably in ridiculous quantities, and I can assure you that my giant pot of vegan chilli with accompanying baked potatoes, corn chips, cheese, sour cream and guacamole will be suitably excessive.

But a main course, however delicious, is really not the point of party catering. No, party catering is all about the dessert, or on this occasion, the cake. And for an event as magnificently camp as Eurovision, the only possible cake is of course a Cross-Dressing Ken Cake.

The genesis of Cross-Dressing Ken was my acquisition, a few years ago, of one of those Dolly Varden cake tins – the kind which look like a taller and more elongated pudding basin and which have been used since time out of mind as the full skirts of Barbie birthday cakes (if you are wondering what on earth I’m talking about, these images should clear things up for you).

For reasons that I still don’t truly understand, the first thought that crossed my mind on being given this tin was “I can make Cross-Dressing Ken cakes!”.   Since this thought crossed my lips at roughly the same time, my fate was sealed – and so was Ken’s.  He has, since this date, starred as Carmen Miranda, complete with fruit on his head and a very fetching cherry halterneck; as Titania with edible wings and as Lady Macbeth with sugary blood dripping from his hands, to mention merely a few of his costumes.  In between these appearances, he leads a quiet life in a pewter tankard on the kitchen shelf.

For today, though, he will be w0rking a bit harder than usual.  This year’s Eurovision is sadly lacking in truly lurid costumes, and it’s up to Ken to take up the slack.

His original plan was to wear the latest in Dolly Varden fashion – a chocolate, pear and vanilla marble cake adorned with plenty of glitter and glamour, with a fruit roll-up to be swept off as a costume reveal.  Alas, this was not to be – the tin fell over in the oven (never say I hide my failures from you on this blog), so instead he is magnificently attired in a vegan lemon and coconut bundt cake with an overskirt, or perhaps a bustle, of meringue, and dairy-free lemon and coconut oil icing.

And some glitter, of course.

Isn’t he fabulous? Go Ken!  I think a number of countries in this year’s Eurovision could learn from his dedication to all that glitters.

But what am I doing writing this when I could be watching the show?  It’s time to eat the cake… and wait for the results to be announced.

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