Sunday Sweets Celebrates Mother Goose Day!
May 1, 2016 Baby Showers are getting pretty weird these days, but lucky for us, not every mom-to-be relishes the thought of fondant nipples and edible C-sections at her party. In fact - and this may blow your mind if you're a regular CW reader - some folks still have shower cakes that are NOT filled with gory red jam!
So since today is Mother Goose Day, let's take a trip down "No Dismemberment Required" Lane, and see how some of Mother Goose's most famous nursery rhymes can look extra Sweet.
Hey Diddle Diddle
;)
(By Little Cherry Cake Company)
SO CUTE.
And in case you don't remember the rhyme - as I didn't:
Hey diddle diddle,
The cat and the fiddle,
The cow jumped over the moon.
The little dog laughed,
To see such fun,
And the dish ran away with the spoon.
Hickory Dickory Dock
;)
(By Cakes By Robin)
We all remember this one, though, right? And this cake looks like the illustration come to life!
Little Bo Peep
;)
This one has illustrations from several nursery rhymes, and I love the vintage feel of the line work on those soft pastels.
Jack and Jill
;)
(By Cakeaters)
Bet you never thought I'd find a Jack and Jill cake, huh? And check out that forced perspective with the well! So clever.
This Little Piggy
;)
(By Mama Wa Cakes)
Ahh, the world's first game of Footsie, set to rhyme. I suppose technically this is just a cute pig cake, but since she has a cupcake, I choose to believe this is the Piggy who went to market... to buy cupcakes.
(No need to tell me "went to market" meant something else back then, ya bunch of Debbie Downers; I DON'T NEED TO KNOW.)
Humpty Dumpty
;)
(By Cakes By Candus)
Totally in love with Humpy's little striped legs and arms - and that dapper top hat!
Three Blind Mice
;)
(By Jacquis Cakes)
Oops. I know I promised no dismemberment, but I just remembered how this rhyme goes. o.0 These mice appear to still have their tails, though, so I guess this is pre-Farmer's-Wife-with-the-carving-knife. (In the kitchen. Because Clue.)
Rock A Bye Baby
;)
Like so many classic nursery rhymes this one always confused me: why are we romanticizing a baby falling out of a tree? Maybe the little bunny and squirrel are there to break the baby's fall. Or they'll go fetch a tiny little trampoline. Or... I'm overthinking this, aren't I? Um... LOOK HOW SWEET.
(The teensy mushrooms! Squee!)
And finally, though The Old Woman Who Lived In A Shoe may not be a Mother Goose rhyme (there's some debate, and then I got bored researching it, but I'm sure someone will explain in the comments), you HAVE to see this cake:
;)
Coolest. Shoe house. EVAHHHH.
Happy Sunday, everyone!
*****
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Reader Comments (32)
D'awwwww :D
I just had an "AAAAAH" moment because it literally never occurred to me that "went to market" didn't mean that the pig went to the market... like, to buy stuff. Good thing that little piggy cake is so cute; it helps soothe the trauma LOL
Is that a steampunk door I see on the Little Old Lady Who Lived in a Shoe House cake?
And in case you're wondering, The pig went to market to get butchered.
Except for the silver heel, that last cake is actually a really cool shoe!
I want a pair of shoes/boots like the last one. Steampunking a nursery rhyme☺
Love these! Especially that terrific shoe at the bottom.
But.... wasn't the clock supposed to strike one, and then the mice ran down?? (Small quibble; really nice cake)
For the first rhyme (Hey Diddle Diddle), I also heard it as "the little dog laughed to see such sport", but maybe it's a regional thing.
Cute cakes! Glad the mice still had their tails.
I always wondered why it took BOTH Jack & Jill to fetch that pail of water. Perhaps falling was their convenient explanation for lying on the grass, hmmm?
Oh.My.God! Mary and her little lamb! Cutest lambie EVER!
Mother Goose, Brothers Grimm,the Cohen brothers, Cheevh and Chong- the origin becomes irrelevant. Whoever the author is, these decorators found their inspiration and created art. Wow.
My bad- it's Coen brothers. Boy, do I feel sheepish!
Hickory Dikory Dock,
Two mice ran up the clock.
The clock struck one -
But the other one got away!
Remember the Lamb Chop version?
When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall
and if I were* a baby,
thisisnotthekindofthinkIwouldwanttohear at all!
*May not actually have been properly put into the passive voice on the show, but I am.
You know what really makes the Humpty Dumpty rhyme so freaky is that fact that it never said he was an egg. So many cute cakes.
I guess I'm older than old, because the line I learned waaaay back when is "the little dog laughed to see such a sport."
It's funny how you remember those nursery rhymes your whole life long. Can't remember my phone number, but nursery rhymes and bad 60s songs? Got 'em!
The old woman lives in a kick-ass shoe house!
I've wondered if the baby in Rock-a-bye Baby is a baby bird. Why else is he and his cradle in the tree top? It is a weird set of lyrics for a children's song. Anyway, I sing the last line:When the bough breaks the cradle will fall, and Mom will catch baby, cradle and all. Nicer, but brings to mind a really buff mother.
xkcd brings up something you probably never noticed about Jack and Jill: why is the well on *top* of the hill?!
https://m.xkcd.com/1662/
I'm pretty sure I read in the Ink Blotter: Hickory Dickory Dock, "3" mice ran up the clock. The clock struck one. The others escaped with minor injuries. LOL...that's the way I heard it !
"Fondant nipples and edible C-sections" sounds like a warped lyric from a really inappropriate "My Favourite Things". (It also doesn't scan.)
Listen, if one of those little piggies ate roast beef, then the first little piggie could definitely have bought cupcakes at the market.
The earliest recorded version of the poem in close to the modern form was printed in London in Mother Goose's Melody around 1765, with the lyrics:
Hey diddle diddle,
The Cat and the Fiddle,
The Cow jump'd over the Moon,
The little dog laugh'd to see such Craft,
And the Dish ran away with the Spoon.[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hey_Diddle_Diddle
I was taught "Craft" as a child.
Hickory dickory is a counting rhyme with lots of hours: struck 1 and down he run; struck 2 and down he flew, etc.
These are WONDERFUL cakes! Thank you for finding and sharing them!
@Nyperold - thank you for bringing up the Lamb Chop version of Rock-a-Bye. Ah, memories.
@ que sera: WHAT???? @misty: I'm with you! Those shoes look like something Stevie Nicks would wear! @ Jamoche: because if it weren't, they wouldn't have had anything to tumble down and break Jack's crown with. Or something. @Betty Martin: I'm older than prehistoric dirt, and the way you said IS right! I know, because I took hieroglyphics in school. (Had a nice teacher; she was hurt real bad though, and always wore bandages all over her whole body! Didn't talk much, either.....if at all.) =^-.-^=
The Hey Diddle, Diddle is my favorite.
1) The carving knife is in the cheese. Sheesh.
2) Steampunk Little Old Lady Shoe, F.T.W.!!!!
My sister learned a version of 'This little piggy' from a very old woman who said she'd learned it from her own grandmother. I don't know if it's more authentic than the one we all know, but it sure makes more sense! (and doesn't involve any dire meanings of 'went to market')
This little piggy went to market
with a basket on her arm,
with milk and eggs and cheese from off the farm.
This little piggy, a good little piggy was she,
she swept the room with a big birch broom
and put the kettle on for tea.
This little piggy had roast beef
and made a face, an awful face
like this: blegh!
at this little piggy who had none.
And this little piggy cried 'WEE WEE WEE WEE!
I'm telling Daddy when he gets home!"
I thought that since today is Sunday, it would be okay to take a look over here while eating, and then that first paragraph hit. I feel a little betrayed. The cakes are lovely, though. I especially like the Bo Peep one. When the design is that simple, every little detail counts. Very pretty.
*cracks nerd knuckles*
ALL RIGHTY THEN.
1. Jack and Jill went up the hill because springs of water (not wells) are commonly found at or near the tops of hills in areas with the right kind of rock strata and a sufficiently high water table.
2. While "Rockabye Baby" is sometimes attributed to a white colonist ignorantly watching Native American moms using wind power to keep their babies soothed while they worked in the field and assuming that they didn't know what they were doing, it appeared in print first in England. It may originally have been a dandling rhyme (a game you play with the baby on your lap), sung while swooping the baby gently up and down, or it may have been a lullaby.
3. This is totally not historically attested, but "There Was an Old Woman" is less depressing when you recite it like this: There was an old woman who lived in a shoe/From her very last giant (she'd killed thirty-two)/Her children could play without bumping their heads/And climbed up the laces to get to their beds.
Rock a bye baby is a political satire, referring to the birth of The Old Pretender, the heir to Catholic James II and his young Queen mary of Modena. The child was alleged to have been smuggled into the royal bed via a warming pan. The Protestant heirs, the daughters of James by his first wife were quite happy to overthrow their father. Mary and her husband William of Orange were joint sovereigns, and younger sister Anne followed. None of her 17 children lived beyond childhood and the Stuarts rule ended with the Hanoverian heir George I.
I had Hey diddle diddle themed wallpaper when I was a little girl. Fits my nickname!
Ok, it NEVER occurred to me that the piggy going to market was doing anything other than a little shopping! Until NOW! My entire life has been a lie... O.0
Seriously. Never crossed my mind. And I'm old-ish.
Yeah, I'm sticking with a little piggy, straw hat on, basket on arm, buying apples.
And cupcakes.
The ryhme 'Humpty Dumpty' was originally a riddle. The answer was a egg. 'Rock-a-bye baby' is a game. The baby is rocked, then allowed to jerk downwards (firmly held) just a little bit at the end. It usually produces chuckles. As for it being a reference to the Old Pretender - I doubt it. People love to retro-fit explanations like this, then state them as true.
Jules, me too!! AAHH! I've been singing this to my kids this whole time and all the picture books show the piggy BUYING stuff at the market...
As Morag notes, people often retrofit "facts" to popular sayings. The toe-counting children's rhyme would be a pretty cruel game if "went to market" were really a euphemism for "was taken to slaughter." (Besides, "little piggy" is hardly a term applied to a full-grown boar.) That interpretation also ignores the rest of the lines. If the first pig left other than under his/her own steam to do some shopping, the second pig makes no sense: "Stayed home" suggests intention; it's not the same as "remained at the farm to gain weight for butchering" or "was kept as a breeder sow until she outlived her usefulness." And surely most farmers feed beef to their porcine stock only if the Sunday roast gets burned. Finally, no little pig would run to a "home" where it knows its eventual fate is death. If it gets loose, it escapes!