photo, cake, and henge by Sharon Barwell of Iced-Moments, Nottingham

Let them eat cake, that takes the cake, the icing on the cake, the cake is a lie… Cake seems to enter into a lot of cliches, or are they memes now?And those who have been to Discworld have no doubt met Mrs. Cake. There is even a musical group called Cake. Ahem. That may refer to a different kind of cake, but nevertheless… We have a henge to discuss here!

It is brilliant. Wonderful. Or as the rebel colonists say, Amazing! We let the builder, Sharon Barwell, tell it in her own words:

“My friend asked me to make a cake for her husband’s birthday back on 28th April and the brief was either a mole or Stonehenge…well there was no choice in my mind, the henge it had to be!

As Pagans they had a large merry meet and the cake was cut, but only after they had sliced the henge off and saved it for all eternity! FABULOUS! I was really pleased as even though it was all edible, I just couldn’t bear to see people eating my lovingly hand-crafted standing stones or even the fallen stones! Thank goodness for my own photographs taken each time I visit, and for the National Geographic website! I tried hard to keep it to scale and had fun carving each stone individually, seeing them come to life before me…It was time consuming, but no where near as hard work as it much have been for the Ancients!”

As we seem to recall they say in Nottingham, home of this baker/artist, “Marry, that meeteth my whole heart!”

We are usually leery of anyone who uses as many exclamation points as we do!!!!! But this someone is given a pardon for having made our highest scoring cake to date. Score: 8½ druids! For more pictures, see here.

She has, as she says, paid close attention to the monument as it stands now: where the uprights and lintels and even the fallen stones are, and even better, the shapes of the individual stones. The average person often doesn’t notice, but the stones of Stonehenge are not of uniform shapes, but each has a shape of its own. Ms. Barwell took the time to sculpt each one. Remarkable!

We have seen and posted a lot of cakes. You can see the three best here, here and (cupcakes) here. Oh, and this Spinal Tap related one here, cucumber included. They are all pretty wonderful, but this one, um, takes the, hmmm, prize, shall we say. We are pleased to hear that this henge will be preserved, hopefully somewhere away from ants and children.

What is it about cake that captures the imagination of the masses? Cakes are made in every shape and size, including pops. People leap out of them, and they play a part in weddings. They are so embedded in our culture, it is no wonder they are well represented in the annals (two Ns!) of henging. We know we will see more, but for now this is the one to beat! !!!! No one matches our use of exclamation points, Sharon, no one!

Until next time, sweet friends, keep an eye on the Olympics for hidden henges, and we wish you happy henging!