FAIRY CAKES

Gold cherry

By Jane Hyphen

Fri, 14 Nov 2025
  • 151 reads
12 comments
 

 

I want to eat stale fairy cakes

Crushing silver balls in my molars

Annihilating all hopes of sophistication

Crumbling among old mercurial fillings 

Soft sponge dried out around the edges

Icing white - cheap as my failings

Sprinkles faded by the dampening air

In the colours of my indecision

 

‘Vegetable’ fat with solvents

Sugar dissolved; acid, hydroxide and sulphur

Flour stripped bare, refined

I know it’s bad for me

But how the wrapper shimmers

And it’s what the fairies eat

And right now I want to fly

 

Sitting with my legs

In old leggings like a jungle cat

Thinned from the constant cycles

Of unaccomplished goals 

Going round and round in enzymes

Trying to dissolve the tough grease

Of my inherent disorders

Factors which bind my ingredients

Together like pasteurised whole egg 

 

Leopard print is back in fashion again

And they’re not cup cakes 

They're FAIRY CAKES

 

 

Certificate U
Poem

Comments

Submitted by celticman on

Absolutely. For Fairy Cake read Crunchies. Faires eat then too. So they must be true. 

 

Submitted by Jane Hyphen on

We don't upset the fairies, celticman, we keep them sweet. Thank you for commenting.

 

Submitted by Turlough on

I always thought that the stuff they use to fill the holes in your teeth was actually made from crushed up silver balls scraped off the tops of stale cakes. You've shaken my world!

Fairy cakes are eaten by fairies while cup cakes are eaten by Barbie, the cast of Friends, and people who can't manage words of two or more syllables (e.g. fairy).

When I was a kid we only had buns and we were happy.

Turlough

Submitted by Jane Hyphen on

Ha, those silver balls are strange. I haven't seen them for sale for a while, maybe they stopped making them now that everyone has white fillings. 

Those awful cup cakes, half made up of piped processed icing. No restraint shown except in their vocabulary.

You can't been the purity of a bun. 

 

Submitted by lenchenelf on

wry and telling: modern "magical" aspirations deconstructed smiley

best as always

Lena

 

Submitted by Jane Hyphen on

Thank you lenchenelf. A deconstructed fairy cake, all mushed up on a white plate in a fancy restaurant at £16 per head. People would pay it too laugh

 

Submitted by airyfairy on

Hooray! Someone else in the ranks of righteousness - they are NOT cupcakes.

Sharply observed and beautifully written.

Submitted by Jane Hyphen on

Thank you for your comment, airyfairy. Why do we have to warp our words to match the US when our own were generally (not always) a bit more magic in their origininal form? 

 

Submitted by airyfairy on

This is our fabulous social media Pick of the Day! Please do share if you can.

Jane - I'm sorry it's a bit of a bland picture (and that its description is cupcakes). The other results of my search for online images of 'fairy cakes with silver balls' will be seared into my mind for ever.

Picture Rexness, free to use at Wikimedia Commons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cup_cake_tower_(4285929225).jpg

Submitted by Jane Hyphen on

Thanks for this. Ha, ha. I can't imagine what you saw but the image you chose looks quite tasty, just the silver balls I was craving.

 

Submitted by insertponceyfre... on

I loved this Jane - cup cakes can do one and I'm not the biggest fan of fairy cakes but have you ever tried angel cakes? (fairy cakes with a bit of sponge and buttercream on top for wings). Well done!

 

Submitted by Jane Hyphen on

Thank you, Insert. I think what you describe are what I grew up calling 'butterfly cakes', angel cakes sounds more exalted, I agree they're nice, less sweet. Fairy cakes are a bit trippy and cup cakes are abominable.