Published Wednesday, 27 June 2012
Or that's the theory anyway. In our house the big girl was insisting that she was making her own buns this year and I was happy to let her favourite Auntie do the needful.
The resulting chocolate cake was delicious, but sadly fell apart upon being extracted from it's baking tray. No problem, tray bakes.
And as the 8 year old gleefully iced and decorated her wares, my seven year old son was looking decidedly glum.
"Can I make buns?" he said. "Of course you can, Buddy" I replied, mentally going through the cupboards to see if we had enough of everything to cobble together something for him.
But there was no need. He zoomed off and back again triumphantly clutching a box of Cars 2 bun mix. Brilliant. Dead easy. Let's go.
It was as we were mixing and the lumps stubbornly refused to be whisked that I had my first suspicion that all was not well. Then my journalistic instinct kicked in - I checked the sell by date.
February 2012 may not seem like that long ago but it's a lifetime when it comes to bun mix. We made them anyway, cooked them, and out they came pale and stodgy looking.
I had made two tiny "taster" samples, and before I could warn him Finn had shovelled one of them in his mouth. His upturned nose told me everything I needed to know.
The cake stand will be all the emptier for my sell-by blunder, but at least tiny tummies will not be upset.