Festive Cakes

Man is born to celebrate was my mother’s maxim. No event was too trivial or commonplace to warrant a special cake: learning to swim or ride a bike, the first melons or French beans from the garden, the arrival of friends, were all marked by a display of her baking talents. Astonishing birthday cakes were launched at our parties; decades before they became standard fare on supermarket shelves, my brothers and I enjoyed trains with trucks, cars with passengers, forts with soldiers, magic forests and princess castles, gleaming with icing and glowing with lit candles.