My younger son has always loved insects and this summer, after an especially great class at Challenge Camp called “Insects, Bug & Squiggly Things”, he asked for dragonfly for his birthday!
After some interesting research, I found some beautiful images of dragonflies for inspiration, including some wings which I blew up to the right size, printed then covered them with clear plastic. I iced over the images to create an intricate web of strands which was, I hoped, thick enough to take its own weight, and left it to dry for a couple of days.

In the mean time, I made the sponge cake, carved the body to shape and made crumbs from the offcuts – which I then combined with buttercream frosting to form the head, eyes and legs.

I used nature-inspired colours to decorate the cake in patterns I’d seen on-line on real dragonflies then, at the absolute last minute, after taking a very deep breath, placed the wings on top.  With a little extra hidden support, they managed to stay in place long enough for the children to admire it, sing Happy Birthday.

…and we did manage to get a few photos, including this one of Ethan, with his close friend Avery, waiting desperately to demolish it.

The cake was gone in moments!