This cake began with a friend, a due date and one very tired stork.
I wanted to make something for her King’s Cross baby shower that felt funny and personal rather than sugary or sentimental. So instead of tiny shoes and teddy bears, I imagined the poor stork halfway through a long-haul delivery, stopping for a breather with the important cargo still safely tucked away.
The stork has been associated with new babies for centuries. In European folklore, the long-legged bird was said to deliver newborns in baskets, flying across rooftops to expectant families. Usually the legend depicts them as tireless and graceful. My version was neither.
The design started as a blank-page bespoke commission: a small story, a family joke and a date to work around. I gathered reference images and modelled a chubby sugarpaste stork, slumped, slightly rumpled and completely done in.
The little basket had a quilted fondant blanket in pink and blue. I also made a wooden-style signpost from chocolate and KitKat, carved with the countdown to the due date. It gave the cake the personal detail I wanted without covering it in generic baby motifs.
The cake itself was a tall two-tier design with alternating layers of vanilla and chocolate sponge, finished with silky vanilla Swiss meringue buttercream.
I piped soft clouds around the stork, basket and chocolate signpost. Then I added one last detail: a tiny comic-style slice of cake. Frankly, cake felt like the only believable reason for a stork to interrupt a transcontinental delivery schedule.
The King’s Cross celebration
For this 2023 shower, we delivered the cake to The Lighterman in Granary Square, King’s Cross. Our group of twenty sat along a long table by the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the canal.
Venue note: The Lighterman currently says guests may bring their own birthday or wedding cake without a cakeage fee. Venue policies can change, so check directly when booking.
The food was great, the company even better, and the cake did exactly what I wanted it to do: make everyone laugh, then ask where they could get one.
From one-off commission to cake you can order
That original commission eventually became our Stork Baby Shower Cake. The character, clouds and basket remain the point of the design, with personal details available depending on the order.
If the stork is not quite your thing, you can browse the wider Baby Shower Cakes collection for other designs and styles.
Love, Reshmi xoxo
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