F es para Feliz Cumpleaños

When I mentioned the other day that cake decorations are a rather un-researched topic, I knew I had these in the queue, but was also making a point. We know what was happening in the UK and US - indeed I've Blogged a fair bit of it here - and can extrapolate that out to Canada and probably Aus' and New Zealand, but what were they putting on cakes in Mainz, Marseilles, Mexico City or Moscow,?

Which is not to say they didn't use other figures (as we did; Britains Wild West being a favourite!) and some (Bully, Heimo and Schleich for instance) are still sold by some feebleBay dealers as just that, but what dedicated 'for cake decorating' stuff was sold in catering supply shops or bakers in other parts of the world? In Argentina, they sold a whole undersea adventure!

Actually at least (I don't know if it's complete) a nine-piece set (the octopus is in two parts and there's a treasure cheats missing from the shot), and in five colours (there are others on eBay with different colourway-lineups), and around the 54mm mark, this set from Argentina is a lovely thing!

Diver and seaweed; they all have icing-spikes/picks and the seaweed are both flat or semi-flat and all are a soft polyethylene, and in the best traditions of those cake decorations we do know of, the painting is a rudimentary stab-and-hope and limited in palette; mostly silver with flesh here, on the diver.

The dolphin and two fish get black & white eyes and more silver, and have a slightly cartoony countenance, whether they tie-in with a local TV thing or are just generically cartoony for the happy-stance of a party cake, I don't know?

The octopus is doing a Disney-style 'walking hand' and the complications of the pose have resulted in a two part model, with separate head and body, usually sold with different colours unioned together.

The treasure chest; it has basic hinges, but more for looks than practicality, if you were to try opening and closing it I suspect they would fail quite quickly?

A quick search for other Argentine cake decorations has thrown-up a nice domestic take on Cinderella and some crude copies of the Culpitt/Wilton Snow White & 7-dwarfes set, but in the future I will try to find out a bit more about cake decorations in other parts of the world!

And, by sheer coincidence (I put this on the desktop to publish a few days ago) it happens to be Moonbase's Wotan's birthday today, so Feliz Cumpleaños Wote, sorry it's a diver not a spaceman!