Birthdoof Cake

Tonight is the fourth anniversary of the Chaos Emergency Doof Broadcast Network, an online Twitch club stream which started during the UK lockdowns and have continued throughout the ongoing pandemic. It remains my only regular social / entertainment contact during the ongoing pandemic. I've discovered some great new music, and met some lovely people through the Discord.

Since I can't go to gigs or clubs any more because #CovidIsNotOver, it's really nice to have something to look forward to each week. It's a fantastic little thing and it's free and it's all thanks to the ongoing commitment of Lee and Tes who've sunk do-not-do-the-maths hours of their lives into it, both on air and behind the scenes.

As is traditional for a birthdoof, we got silly party food for dinner. In previous years this has involved 80s British party food, such as cheese and pineapple on cocktail sticks, mounted on a jacket potato so it looks like a hedgehog ("spudhog"); Angel Delight; and vols-aux-vents. This year the savoury options were a collection of easy oven food - garlic mushrooms, onion bhajis, vegetable spring rolls. Because last night I had a Cunning Plan.

I'm not much of a baker, but I roped mother_bones and cosmolinguist into helping me make a Birthdoof Cake. It was a simple sponge cake, with a layer of yellow-dyed fondant and green fondant edge chevrons to match the Doof logo. E cut the letters "DOOF 4" out of black fondant and we arranged them on top, along with four glittery candles. We did the baking last night and dyed the icing, then today we rolled it all out and arranged it. One of the Doof DJs lives in south Manchester, and we delivered it to her about 40 minutes before she went onstage. She graciously gave us a couple of slices to take home with us so we could taste the fruits of our labour.

I'm really happy with how this turned out. It was a silly idea for no benefit other than to make someone happy. It stretched my skills a bit but I had people I could rely on for support, including getting some fondant advice from my Mum. I feel like I achieved something but the stakes were very low.