Duck Cake!

[haresfur]

TL;DR: Making a Duck Cake is really as painful as it is made out to be and I think I made it sufficiently daggy.

 

The Women's Weekly published a children's birthday cake book, by Pamela Clark in 1980. Children would pour over the book to pick out the cake they wanted for their birthday and it became a cultural icon and a thing of nostalgia. Some of the cakes were particularly difficult to construct and in an interview, the author suggested about one, "If you're picking up this book for the very first time, turn to the tip truck and glue those pages together, and never look back. It's not an easy cake to make. Trust me. I know."

 

Fast forward to 2021 and the children's cartoon show Bluey was becoming very popular and was picked up in Europe and by the Disney Channel. And one of the episodes had the father, Bandit, attempting to make a duck cake at the insistence of his daughter. Now, in various corners of the internet, people are posting their attempts at recreating the duck cake. Women's Weekly has kindly published the recipe with a photo of what it should look like.

 

 

I don't have kids, but decided to have a go for my partner's birthday/retirement party. She was dubious.

 

I couldn't leave the recipe alone because I don't like cake mixes so I used my mom's quick sponge cake recipe and Betty Crocker's butter cream frosting. I kind of messed up the cake by trying to double the batch, which wouldn't fit into my mixer and the cake ended up too soft and kept ripping up as I frosted it. Carving the head and neck took two attempts and still didn't seem right. Still it was going ok until the tail collapsed. I soldiered on, using many extra bamboo skewers to hold it together. So I present to you my daggy duck cake rev. 1.0:

 

 

 

I have a feeling it is not going to survive the hour-long trip to the party venue.

[blue_dolphin]

Priceless!

 

[Duvel]

Without the explanation, it looks like it is shaped from two pounds of butter. Which I would respect. As I do your cake approach. And yet the question in my brain lingers: why ?!

 

(tl;dr: good job 👍)

Edited September 6, 2022 by Duvel (log)

[kayb]

@haresfur — Many kudos for taking on such a challenge. And congrats on the result…though it looks something more like a lamb than a duck.

 

I don’t do decorated cakes, beyond piping a rosette here and there. I know my limits. The duck is waaaayyyy past them.

[Alex]

Ah, the importance of punctuation. Duck Cake! or...Duck! Cake!

 

The duck cake looks like a perfect candidate for such an amusement. Eat the chips/crisps first, though. And remove the skewers.

[heidih]

I like your gummy bow much better than the over large one on the sample picture. Transport!  Report back on that and reception. Fanciest I ever got was a castle for my sister as a teen - from Betty Crocker Boys and Girls cookbook - so novice geared. Link shows the cake- mine was almost identical. The first image of bunny salad was my son's first "cooking" try during a "let us learn responsibility phase.

https://popgoesthepage.princeton.edu/tag/betty-crockers-new-boys-and-girls-cookbook/

[haresfur]

The duck spent the night uncovered in the fridge and the frosting hardened up. I've never made anything like the fluffy frosting called for in the recipe but it seems like it might not have held up as well. What do you think? The duck was successfully transported to the Kyabram Wildlife Park with plastic wrap and spent the time until lunch safe in the staff's office. They were impressed(?) Well they thought it was lots of fun. Our friends were a bit bemused. I think the book was after their time. We ate from the tail forward to the head and neck and gave the front to the park staff.

 

I'm calling it a success.