Nothing, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING says ppppaaaarrrttttttyyyy like hedgehog cake. Well, not when you are about 6 years old anyway.

As none of the people I think of as friends plan on growing up anytime soon, this was the obvious choice for the Breakin' Bread Xmas Special.

Breakin' Bread

The art of communal mealtimes at Islington Mill, the idea being to bring some food and share with others over lunchtime chatter. Extreme purists say you should always make the food you bring, though many less-able and less-organised attendees are allowed to attend (but silently shunned) with pre-bought foodstuffs from Sainsbury's.

Back to caking... And specifically some general instructions on making your own hedgehog.

What we are trying to create here is a rustic novelty abstract animal cake which is stupendously sickly and consists of as much chocolate as possible. It also must have a face. These are the rules we're playing to here.

Ingredients

• 1 * Tesco Chocolate Fudge Cake Mix (easiest because it contains cake and icing mix, some other brands only include the cake mix)
• 2 * Eggs
• 75ml Cold Water
• 2 Tbsp Milk
• 2 Tbsp Vegetable Oil
• Buttery Stuff

Cooking Shiz

• 2 * Sandwich Tins
• 1 * Mixing Bowl
• 1 * Measuring Spoons
• 1 * Measuring Jug
• Greaseproof Paper

Commence Bog-Standard Cakery

First bake the cake as per the cake mix instructions. You will end up with the two halves of the standard cake sandwich, which then need sticking together using the adhesive that is 'fudge icing' (part of the cake mix pack).

Stop with the cake mix pack instructions at this point... This is where we have to go freestyle on this shit.

Pimp My Cake

Take your stuck together chocolate cake and cut it in a similar pattern as above. You will want to cut the side parts slightly thinner than I did here, or your headgehog will turn out tall and thin like mine did. I was okay with this look as I'm so anti-obsesity, and despite me taking the time out of my life to write this blog entry about a dumb cake, didn't really care that much.

Next, stick the two sides on the top using glue, I mean fudge icing, and get rid of the two smaller offcuts of cake somehow... Maybe these could be used to add extra appendages to your hedgehog if a genetically deformed form is preferred (e.g. trying to approximate a 'mong').

Hopefully you should now have the vision to turn this thing into a hedgehog through complete coverage by fudgey-mortar, and then using rows of chocolate buttons cut in half.

Style out the face in whatever way you like. I used a glace cherry for a nose, and spent about 15 minutes cutting thin strips of chocolate out of some buttons to make 'I AM FUCKIN DEAD' eyes... Thereby making this a deadgehog. Bringing death to a party is always a good way to remind people that WE ARE ALL GONNA DIE.

Delivery and Consumption

You can action this part of the process in your own personal way, but I put mine on some tin foil and drove 40 miles to deliver it in a specialist tupperware cake box, which any heterosexual male should have at least one of.

I have to admit a lot of the spines had subsided overnight, and the hedgehog had suffered quite a major spinal prolapse due to the top of my cake being so convex, thereby forcing the two cut off/stuck on bits to lean in opposite directions... Not the general look you are aiming for, though it kind of worked in the context of it being so DEAD.

Here are Breakin' Bread hardcoreists Sarah Jay and Lou Gardner enjoying deadgehog like cutesy toddlers at a birthday party just before we all played musical chairs and had a 'quiet time' lie down with some milk and security blankets.