I love being a parent in the time of Bluey. But Duck Cake nearly broke me

The Advertiser

20-06-2025

Voice of Real Australia is a regular newsletter from the local news teams of the ACM network, which stretches into every state and territory. Today's is written by Illawarra Mercury deputy editor Kate McIlwain.
Normally, I count myself lucky to be a parent in the age of Bluey, which first screened when my eldest child was six weeks old.
Over the past 6.5 years, the show about the two Heeler sisters and their parents has been a constant source of humour and solidarity as I parent my own pair of energetic sisters.
Even though I've seen every episode more than once, it's still the show I'll sit down to watch with my kids when it's on.
But this year, for the first time, I found myself cursing that small blue dog - or more accurately, her little sister Bingo.
The reason? Duck Cake.
For the uninitiated, Duck Cake - originally called Rubber Ducky - featured in the pages of the hallowed Women's Weekly Children's Birthday Cake Book, which millennials like me are now inflicting on our children because of the huge role it played in our own childhoods.
(It's such a cultural phenomenon that it's just been memorialised in coin format by the Australian Mint!)
It's also the title of an episode of Bluey, in which Bingo chooses the weird apricot-coloured, potato-chip-beaked, popcorn-feathered creation that no one ever used to choose, for her fifth birthday cake "because it makes my tail wag".
Her dad, Bandit, is then saddled with recreating Duck Cake - "the hardest of all cakes" - while Chilli and Bingo go out.
The episode unfolds with him dropping the duck's head but still producing a wonky cake that Bingo loves, and Bluey learning a lesson about helping with cleaning up and what makes her tail wag.
This has catapulted Duck Cake into superstardom for many of the younger members of Gen Alpha, including my kids, and I know of plenty of parents who have now had to make Duck Cake - for real life (IYKYK).
My four-year-old had been requesting it for an entire year in the lead up to her birthday, and - thinking she would forget by the time her actual birthday rolled around - I kept agreeing that of course she could have Duck Cake if that's what her heart desired.
But reader, she did not forget.
Which is how I found myself trying to work out how to engineer a duck from cake and icing ahead of her birthday party.
Liquorice was the final straw
When I told my school mum friends I was making Duck Cake, some of them just laughed. They all demanded photos of the finished product.
One offered advice about using a strong buttercream and plenty of skewers.
I actually love making cakes for my kids - and have even baked wedding cakes for several people over the years - but as I made this one, I began to see why Chilli and Bandit use "Duck Cake" in place of that other rhyming expletive.
It was the fourth trip to the supermarket to find strap liquorice that did it.
I'd made it past the Michelangelo-level cake carving of the duck's body, and managed to make a sturdy head and neck which wasn't going to do a Bandit and fall off. (The head did look a bit like ET instead of a duck, but that was okay because the 1980s alien happens to be my four-year-old's favourite character, go figure).
I'd made copious amounts of yellow buttercream and spread it over the duck in the fluffy, artful style of the AWW.
And then, having been unable to find suitable liquorice at Aldi and Coles, I was trying to make sure the duck's eyes didn't look deranged.
I had first tried leaving off the black outline - which made it look very angry and kind of hypnotised.
Then I tried drawing on the black circles with chocolate icing paint. But that quickly began melting down all over the duck's face and I had to scrape it off and start again.
So off to Woolies to track down liquorice I went.
And I had to buy TWO METRES of the vile stuff, even though I needed two 7cm strips to form the perfect black, wide-eyed circles around the orange smarties I used for eyes.
Energy flagging, I turned my attention to a packet of crinkle-cut chips, and began sorting them into piles to see if I could select two that would work for a duck's beak.
I found the perfect pair, but then broke them in half because I wasn't careful enough shoving them into the icing the first time. Argh.
My daughter then wanted to "help" with the popcorn part, which meant I had to pick it off and do it all again once she got bored.
Anyway, in the end, I had produced a Duck Cake that was better than Bandit's but probably not quite as good as the AWW. Success!
And at my daughter's party it was total hit on two fronts. Because of the Bluey-effect the kids were delighted, and because it's just bloody difficult, the parents were super impressed too.
And of course, the beatific smile on my four-year-old's face as we all sang and blew out the candles made my tail wag, maybe even enough that I'll let her choose whichever cake she likes again next year.
Voice of Real Australia is a regular newsletter from the local news teams of the ACM network, which stretches into every state and territory. Today's is written by Illawarra Mercury deputy editor Kate McIlwain.
Normally, I count myself lucky to be a parent in the age of Bluey, which first screened when my eldest child was six weeks old.
Over the past 6.5 years, the show about the two Heeler sisters and their parents has been a constant source of humour and solidarity as I parent my own pair of energetic sisters.
Even though I've seen every episode more than once, it's still the show I'll sit down to watch with my kids when it's on.
But this year, for the first time, I found myself cursing that small blue dog - or more accurately, her little sister Bingo.
The reason? Duck Cake.
For the uninitiated, Duck Cake - originally called Rubber Ducky - featured in the pages of the hallowed Women's Weekly Children's Birthday Cake Book, which millennials like me are now inflicting on our children because of the huge role it played in our own childhoods.
(It's such a cultural phenomenon that it's just been memorialised in coin format by the Australian Mint!)
It's also the title of an episode of Bluey, in which Bingo chooses the weird apricot-coloured, potato-chip-beaked, popcorn-feathered creation that no one ever used to choose, for her fifth birthday cake "because it makes my tail wag".
Her dad, Bandit, is then saddled with recreating Duck Cake - "the hardest of all cakes" - while Chilli and Bingo go out.
The episode unfolds with him dropping the duck's head but still producing a wonky cake that Bingo loves, and Bluey learning a lesson about helping with cleaning up and what makes her tail wag.
This has catapulted Duck Cake into superstardom for many of the younger members of Gen Alpha, including my kids, and I know of plenty of parents who have now had to make Duck Cake - for real life (IYKYK).
My four-year-old had been requesting it for an entire year in the lead up to her birthday, and - thinking she would forget by the time her actual birthday rolled around - I kept agreeing that of course she could have Duck Cake if that's what her heart desired.
But reader, she did not forget.
Which is how I found myself trying to work out how to engineer a duck from cake and icing ahead of her birthday party.
Liquorice was the final straw
When I told my school mum friends I was making Duck Cake, some of them just laughed. They all demanded photos of the finished product.
One offered advice about using a strong buttercream and plenty of skewers.
I actually love making cakes for my kids - and have even baked wedding cakes for several people over the years - but as I made this one, I began to see why Chilli and Bandit use "Duck Cake" in place of that other rhyming expletive.
It was the fourth trip to the supermarket to find strap liquorice that did it.
I'd made it past the Michelangelo-level cake carving of the duck's body, and managed to make a sturdy head and neck which wasn't going to do a Bandit and fall off. (The head did look a bit like ET instead of a duck, but that was okay because the 1980s alien happens to be my four-year-old's favourite character, go figure).
I'd made copious amounts of yellow buttercream and spread it over the duck in the fluffy, artful style of the AWW.
And then, having been unable to find suitable liquorice at Aldi and Coles, I was trying to make sure the duck's eyes didn't look deranged.
I had first tried leaving off the black outline - which made it look very angry and kind of hypnotised.
Then I tried drawing on the black circles with chocolate icing paint. But that quickly began melting down all over the duck's face and I had to scrape it off and start again.
So off to Woolies to track down liquorice I went.
And I had to buy TWO METRES of the vile stuff, even though I needed two 7cm strips to form the perfect black, wide-eyed circles around the orange smarties I used for eyes.
Energy flagging, I turned my attention to a packet of crinkle-cut chips, and began sorting them into piles to see if I could select two that would work for a duck's beak.
I found the perfect pair, but then broke them in half because I wasn't careful enough shoving them into the icing the first time. Argh.
My daughter then wanted to "help" with the popcorn part, which meant I had to pick it off and do it all again once she got bored.
Anyway, in the end, I had produced a Duck Cake that was better than Bandit's but probably not quite as good as the AWW. Success!
And at my daughter's party it was total hit on two fronts. Because of the Bluey-effect the kids were delighted, and because it's just bloody difficult, the parents were super impressed too.
And of course, the beatific smile on my four-year-old's face as we all sang and blew out the candles made my tail wag, maybe even enough that I'll let her choose whichever cake she likes again next year.
Voice of Real Australia is a regular newsletter from the local news teams of the ACM network, which stretches into every state and territory. Today's is written by Illawarra Mercury deputy editor Kate McIlwain.
Normally, I count myself lucky to be a parent in the age of Bluey, which first screened when my eldest child was six weeks old.
Over the past 6.5 years, the show about the two Heeler sisters and their parents has been a constant source of humour and solidarity as I parent my own pair of energetic sisters.
Even though I've seen every episode more than once, it's still the show I'll sit down to watch with my kids when it's on.
But this year, for the first time, I found myself cursing that small blue dog - or more accurately, her little sister Bingo.
The reason? Duck Cake.
For the uninitiated, Duck Cake - originally called Rubber Ducky - featured in the pages of the hallowed Women's Weekly Children's Birthday Cake Book, which millennials like me are now inflicting on our children because of the huge role it played in our own childhoods.
(It's such a cultural phenomenon that it's just been memorialised in coin format by the Australian Mint!)
It's also the title of an episode of Bluey, in which Bingo chooses the weird apricot-coloured, potato-chip-beaked, popcorn-feathered creation that no one ever used to choose, for her fifth birthday cake "because it makes my tail wag".
Her dad, Bandit, is then saddled with recreating Duck Cake - "the hardest of all cakes" - while Chilli and Bingo go out.
The episode unfolds with him dropping the duck's head but still producing a wonky cake that Bingo loves, and Bluey learning a lesson about helping with cleaning up and what makes her tail wag.
This has catapulted Duck Cake into superstardom for many of the younger members of Gen Alpha, including my kids, and I know of plenty of parents who have now had to make Duck Cake - for real life (IYKYK).
My four-year-old had been requesting it for an entire year in the lead up to her birthday, and - thinking she would forget by the time her actual birthday rolled around - I kept agreeing that of course she could have Duck Cake if that's what her heart desired.
But reader, she did not forget.
Which is how I found myself trying to work out how to engineer a duck from cake and icing ahead of her birthday party.
Liquorice was the final straw
When I told my school mum friends I was making Duck Cake, some of them just laughed. They all demanded photos of the finished product.
One offered advice about using a strong buttercream and plenty of skewers.
I actually love making cakes for my kids - and have even baked wedding cakes for several people over the years - but as I made this one, I began to see why Chilli and Bandit use "Duck Cake" in place of that other rhyming expletive.
It was the fourth trip to the supermarket to find strap liquorice that did it.
I'd made it past the Michelangelo-level cake carving of the duck's body, and managed to make a sturdy head and neck which wasn't going to do a Bandit and fall off. (The head did look a bit like ET instead of a duck, but that was okay because the 1980s alien happens to be my four-year-old's favourite character, go figure).
I'd made copious amounts of yellow buttercream and spread it over the duck in the fluffy, artful style of the AWW.
And then, having been unable to find suitable liquorice at Aldi and Coles, I was trying to make sure the duck's eyes didn't look deranged.
I had first tried leaving off the black outline - which made it look very angry and kind of hypnotised.
Then I tried drawing on the black circles with chocolate icing paint. But that quickly began melting down all over the duck's face and I had to scrape it off and start again.
So off to Woolies to track down liquorice I went.
And I had to buy TWO METRES of the vile stuff, even though I needed two 7cm strips to form the perfect black, wide-eyed circles around the orange smarties I used for eyes.
Energy flagging, I turned my attention to a packet of crinkle-cut chips, and began sorting them into piles to see if I could select two that would work for a duck's beak.
I found the perfect pair, but then broke them in half because I wasn't careful enough shoving them into the icing the first time. Argh.
My daughter then wanted to "help" with the popcorn part, which meant I had to pick it off and do it all again once she got bored.
Anyway, in the end, I had produced a Duck Cake that was better than Bandit's but probably not quite as good as the AWW. Success!
And at my daughter's party it was total hit on two fronts. Because of the Bluey-effect the kids were delighted, and because it's just bloody difficult, the parents were super impressed too.
And of course, the beatific smile on my four-year-old's face as we all sang and blew out the candles made my tail wag, maybe even enough that I'll let her choose whichever cake she likes again next year.
Voice of Real Australia is a regular newsletter from the local news teams of the ACM network, which stretches into every state and territory. Today's is written by Illawarra Mercury deputy editor Kate McIlwain.
Normally, I count myself lucky to be a parent in the age of Bluey, which first screened when my eldest child was six weeks old.
Over the past 6.5 years, the show about the two Heeler sisters and their parents has been a constant source of humour and solidarity as I parent my own pair of energetic sisters.
Even though I've seen every episode more than once, it's still the show I'll sit down to watch with my kids when it's on.
But this year, for the first time, I found myself cursing that small blue dog - or more accurately, her little sister Bingo.
The reason? Duck Cake.
For the uninitiated, Duck Cake - originally called Rubber Ducky - featured in the pages of the hallowed Women's Weekly Children's Birthday Cake Book, which millennials like me are now inflicting on our children because of the huge role it played in our own childhoods.
(It's such a cultural phenomenon that it's just been memorialised in coin format by the Australian Mint!)
It's also the title of an episode of Bluey, in which Bingo chooses the weird apricot-coloured, potato-chip-beaked, popcorn-feathered creation that no one ever used to choose, for her fifth birthday cake "because it makes my tail wag".
Her dad, Bandit, is then saddled with recreating Duck Cake - "the hardest of all cakes" - while Chilli and Bingo go out.
The episode unfolds with him dropping the duck's head but still producing a wonky cake that Bingo loves, and Bluey learning a lesson about helping with cleaning up and what makes her tail wag.
This has catapulted Duck Cake into superstardom for many of the younger members of Gen Alpha, including my kids, and I know of plenty of parents who have now had to make Duck Cake - for real life (IYKYK).
My four-year-old had been requesting it for an entire year in the lead up to her birthday, and - thinking she would forget by the time her actual birthday rolled around - I kept agreeing that of course she could have Duck Cake if that's what her heart desired.
But reader, she did not forget.
Which is how I found myself trying to work out how to engineer a duck from cake and icing ahead of her birthday party.
Liquorice was the final straw
When I told my school mum friends I was making Duck Cake, some of them just laughed. They all demanded photos of the finished product.
One offered advice about using a strong buttercream and plenty of skewers.
I actually love making cakes for my kids - and have even baked wedding cakes for several people over the years - but as I made this one, I began to see why Chilli and Bandit use "Duck Cake" in place of that other rhyming expletive.
It was the fourth trip to the supermarket to find strap liquorice that did it.
I'd made it past the Michelangelo-level cake carving of the duck's body, and managed to make a sturdy head and neck which wasn't going to do a Bandit and fall off. (The head did look a bit like ET instead of a duck, but that was okay because the 1980s alien happens to be my four-year-old's favourite character, go figure).
I'd made copious amounts of yellow buttercream and spread it over the duck in the fluffy, artful style of the AWW.
And then, having been unable to find suitable liquorice at Aldi and Coles, I was trying to make sure the duck's eyes didn't look deranged.
I had first tried leaving off the black outline - which made it look very angry and kind of hypnotised.
Then I tried drawing on the black circles with chocolate icing paint. But that quickly began melting down all over the duck's face and I had to scrape it off and start again.
So off to Woolies to track down liquorice I went.
And I had to buy TWO METRES of the vile stuff, even though I needed two 7cm strips to form the perfect black, wide-eyed circles around the orange smarties I used for eyes.
Energy flagging, I turned my attention to a packet of crinkle-cut chips, and began sorting them into piles to see if I could select two that would work for a duck's beak.
I found the perfect pair, but then broke them in half because I wasn't careful enough shoving them into the icing the first time. Argh.
My daughter then wanted to "help" with the popcorn part, which meant I had to pick it off and do it all again once she got bored.
Anyway, in the end, I had produced a Duck Cake that was better than Bandit's but probably not quite as good as the AWW. Success!
And at my daughter's party it was total hit on two fronts. Because of the Bluey-effect the kids were delighted, and because it's just bloody difficult, the parents were super impressed too.
And of course, the beatific smile on my four-year-old's face as we all sang and blew out the candles made my tail wag, maybe even enough that I'll let her choose whichever cake she likes again next year.