The science fiction birthday party

The guest list included Jedi knights (good and evil), Arthur Dent (don't panic, especially if you have a towel ready), and a wild assortment of aliens. The kids enjoyed aiming Nerf darts at Darth Vader and the Dalek, making aliens to hang on the wall, and whacking a celestial piñata. Somehow, the Dalek cake managed to make it through the night without entirely caving in or collapsing (it was touch and go) and was nearly exterminated by the children. And the Hitchhiker's Guide was right--a towel comes in quite handy, especially with vast quantities of chocolate, punch and children around. Happy birthday, James! (I'm sorry we forgot your present, but it's in the mail!)



P.S. If you found this post looking for instructions for a dalek cake...well, not that ours is much of a role model, but here goes. Stacy baked cake in two bread pans for the body and in a small round ceramic bowl for the head. We set up one loaf of cake straight, and leaned the other against it to make that part of the dalek that kind of sticks out in front. The round piece sat on top. The whole thing was glued together with raspberry jam and loads of chocolate frosting. Most of the shaping of the outside was creative frosting plaster work. We used canned frosting to save work, but homemade would have hardened more and probably been more helpful. (I'd recommend extra-stiff homemade frosting.) Chocolate-covered malt balls are the key ingredient for making the cake look reasonably dalek-like. We also jabbed in bits of licorice for arms, various other candies for the eyepiece and such, and spread around rectangles of chocolate to make the collar/shoulder thing. (I'm not a robot engineer, clearly.) The two bread-shaped cakes did not want to stay vertical, so we also jammed cookies strategically around the sides and underneath. The thing barely escaped disaster--all we had was crossed fingers and a prayer. Plus we wedged it up against the refrigerator for the night.