The kid with birthday closest to halloween has always had a very strong affinity for pumpkins. It was no surprise when she asked me to make these mini jack ‘o lantern cupcakes.
They turned out to be a very easy project. I just used orange icing, cut up a few pieces of black licorice for the faces, and broke pretzles to use for the stems.
They were so easy that we did a batch at home together instead of a family birthday cake. All ages of kids got creative and had a little fun.
In our house we have four birthdays in October -including the three little girls. That means I send cupcakes to school three times in a two week period. And to add to the cupcake chaos this year the oldest requested cupcakes to take to a college potluck! So make that sending four batches of cupcakes to school in two weeks. To try and avert cupcake fatique I made a batch of 200 mini cupcakes the first week in October. But I don’t think it worked -I still have a big case of cupcake fatique!
Sometimes I let the kids choose their design and other times they get what I feel like doing! This year I did two batches of swirl drop flowers, one batch of soccer balls, and the last batch were jack ‘o lanterns.
I sent these ones to both preschool and college. And it seems they went over well with both crowds!
The volcano cake was my effort for the little kids party of 2008. When the kids came up with this plan I had absolutely no idea how I would pull it off. It turned out to probably be the most fun I’ve had creating a cake yet. I felt like I was creating a free form sculpture as I cut and squished and moulded cake pieces into shape. I inserted a small juice glass in the top ready to hold dry ice for the eruption. And then I just went crazy with the icing and dinosaurs.
On party day I put the dry ice in at the last minute and added water. We were all shocked at how much fog it created. The kids (and adults) loved it so much we didn’t cut it right away and just created eruptions for a while!
Tons of fun for both me and the kids! (and fun for the teenagers that took over the dry ice after the party!)
We just survived the annual triple birthday party for the three youngest girls. It was a chaotic day with 20 kids, girls & boys, from three to nine years old. It took a team of four to pull it off –us parents, the almost adult kid, and the almost adult kids boyfriend. There is no way I would have hosted a home party without all that support!
I like to make the girls a special cake every year for their party. This year was the window box cake. It came from a picture I ripped out of a magazine way back in the ‘90’s. Back then I had the desire to do projects like this for my oldest but I had absolutely no idea how to go about it! Cakes are something I have just figured out in the last three years. So she missed out when she was little but gets to enjoy them now even though she is almost all grown up.
I used a 9×13 chocolate cake -recipe found on Engineering the Taste (thanks Jessica). I prepped the cake by cutting it in half lengthwise and stacking the two pieces, hollowing out the top and doing a crumb coat of very thin icing. Iced the outside and borders with the yellow icing and filled the top with cookie crumbs. Then I just added a few props and made flowers out of skewers and a variety of candies from the bulk foods section at the grocery store.
Kids were happy and therefore I am very happy with it!
Going Crazy In The Kitchen 