This Mother’s Day, X-Ray and I went to see Matilda the Musical in the West End. The production — based on Roald Dahl’s beloved book — was fast, clever, engrossing and wildly entertaining. We loved every second and walked out CRAVING CHOCOLATE CAKE!

So when a bespoke enquiry came in for a Matilda-themed children’s cake, I practically leapt at it. Matilda’s love of books, the alphabet blocks, those bold primary colours and, of course, Mrs Trunchbull’s infamous chocolate cake… there was so much to play with.

I started by making tiny books out of sugar paste in bright colours. In the musical, the stage has these beautiful alphabet letters suspended from the ceiling — I wanted to echo that by letting letters cascade down a chocolate drip on a blue cake. Why blue? Because Matilda’s dress is blue, obviously.

And then there’s the Bruce Bogtrotter chocolate cake. Whether in the book, the film or the stage version, it is one of the most intense cake-based scenes ever created. Any Matilda birthday cake simply must reference Mrs Trunchbull’s chocolate cake. In the movie it’s a towering chocolate sponge slathered in rustic chocolate buttercream. And believe me when I say: making buttercream look intentionally messy is far harder than giving it a flawless finish.

That little cake ended up being the most time-consuming part of the whole design — a petite 3" triple-layer chocolate sponge, iced in deliberately rustic fashion. I didn’t want to just plonk it on the cake either, so I cut a few slices out and used them as extra decorations.

This is such a perfect Matilda birthday cake. I hope you love it as much as I do :)

Lots of love,

Reshmi xoxo