Over the Rainbows

Finally as promised, here are the photos of my beloved Muffin's fifth birthday party - the first one, that is!

(nb: Cake pop idea from Bubble & Sweet)

The Muffin had decided that she would like "a night party" with the family, just like the big girls (her older cousins) have. This is generally a simple get-together, where everyone brings some sort of finger food along to share for dinner. We decided on a Rainbow theme for this party, partly because it's a bright, happy and Super Easy theme to do, and partly because The Muffin and I had both fallen in love with Sweetapolita's Rainbow Doodle Cake post, and really wanted to try it out.

So I baked the cake, following Sweetapolita's recipe. The only change I made was that whilst I did fill the cake with lemon Swiss meringue buttercream, I thought it would be too soft for the outer frosting layer. It was 39 degrees Celsius on the day of the party, and SMBC is just too soft for Australian summers - I learned that the hard way! So I coated the cake in white chocolate ganache (Planet Cake style), before covering it with white fondant.

Then I let The Muffin loose with my food markers. She had a lovely time!

(please excuse the extremely attractive great cavernous hole left by one of the fattest birthday candles ever...)


When the cake was cut, it really did cause a sensation!


One thing to keep in mind if you decide to make this cake: whilst it is easy, it does take a really long time to bake (unless you have heaps of tins the same size). I only have two 8-inch cake tins, so I had to bake the cake in three batches. Not difficult, just a bit time consuming, that's all.

Another idea I'd been dying to try out was one I found over at Bubble and Sweet. Her little smiley cloud cake pops are so adorable! My version turned out a little messier (I stuck the rainbows on in a hurry while the party was actually on - I know, I am just So Organised) - but I was still really happy with the result! The Muffin helped me make the little rainbows out of fondant, too.


The Muffin and I also made some small rainbow-shaped cookies and iced them with white icing. Then when they were dry, we drew rainbows on them with the food markers! We were very pleased with these, and I couldn't believe it the day after the party when I realised: We Had Completely Forgotten To Serve The Cookies!!

So I had an idea: as The Muffin started Pre-Primary on her actual birthday, she was taking cupcakes in to school to celebrate with the class. A little change of plan re cupcake paper colours and decorations, et voila:

Rainbow Cupcakes!

Our table decorations were very simple: we simply had one helium balloon in each colour of the rainbow, each tied to a clear cellophane lolly bag with just a few lollies and a very simple novelty (it was a gesture - we don't do full-on goody bags for family parties). These we lined up along the back of the food table so that the balloons floated in a line next to each other in rainbow colour order. It looked surprisingly effective!

We had great fun with this party theme, and the best thing was how excited The Muffin was at being able to help with it all (and I think she did a great job, too!)

Of course, the following weekend (ie yesterday), she also had a Princess themed party with all her little friends - but that's another story...

Spotty Party!

So I'm finally getting around to posting some pics of The Muffin's birthday party (a few weeks after the event, but hey, who's counting?)

For my little girl's birthday this year, she did not want Princesses. Or Fairies. Or Mermaids. No. It was "Mummy, I would like a Spotty theme for my party". I have no idea where that came from, but there we are. It actually suited me just fine, as
a) "spotty" is fairly easy as themes go; b) I like spots too; c) I think the princess thing will work better once she's of school age and the majority of the guests are under the age of fifteen; and d) she was willing to hand over complete creative control of her cake, provided it included spots and purple. Score!

So this is what I made:-

Overall I was pretty happy with it in the end. It was actually kind of a nightmare to make, as the weather was not only hot, but really humid as well. And we all know how much sugarpaste looooves humidity... In the end I had to take the whole thing to a friend's house to decorate it (thank you thank you - it's so nice to have awesome neighbours!), as refrigerated airconditioning was the only way I could think of to dry it out (like seriously, it was Wet). That's the other good thing about spots - they can be strategically placed to cover the worst blemishes!

I decided on the caterpillar and ladybug as a way of adding a cute factor, and also to add another personalised element... For Christmas I got Miniscule on DVD (after some fairly obvious hints in that direction), and it never really occurred to me that The Muffin would like it too. But of course it's so cute, and funny as well, that she has fallen in love right along with me. So I picked out two of the spottier characters for her cake - the ever-hungry and oh-so-cute caterpillar...


... and the ultra-cheeky, naughty ladybug...



The Muffin and I also made spotty cake pops:-

And spotty party-themed cookies:-
I did the Present and Party Hat cookies, and The Muffin did the Spot cookies.
(and no, these are not really my best work. I actually forgot to take a pic of the whole platter - these were the leftovers! So annoying, I do that All The Time...)

The kids played Musical Bobs, fished for spotty foam fish in The Muffin's paddling pool (each fish had a specific prize associated with it), and had a Popcorn Race. The race was actually really good. We split the kids into two teams (evening out the ages/ability levels as much as possible) and gave each team a big container of air-popped popcorn and a large spoon. The kids took turns scooping up a spoonful of popcorn and carrying it to the other side of the yard, where each team had another (equal-sized) container. The first team to fill this second container with popcorn won. Not a new idea, I know, but it worked really well with the popcorn, especially as it was fairly windy that day! :o)

Anyway, a good time was had by all, and The Muffin took one look at her cake and said "Miniscule bugs! Can I eat the caterpillar?!!" And you can't ask for more than that...

Cake Pops!

Okay, so everyone who has ever been on any baking blog or website has heard of Bakerella and her cake pops. If they haven't, they should have. She - and they - are awesome.

So I was inspired to try out some of my own, and I decided to make mice. Now I must say, I fully expected this to be a debacle of massive proportions. But in the event, it was actually easier than I thought it would be. It did take some time, but weirdly enough, the hardest part was finding the lollipop sticks. I ended up having to order them online. Are you listening, Australian retailers???

Anyway...

Firstly, the balls themselves are just crumbled cake mixed with frosting...


...which is then rolled into balls...


... before having a stick inserted, some freezer time, and in this case a choc chip added to each one (to create the shape of the mouse's snout)...


Then each pop has some more freezer time, before being dipped quickly into white chocolate. I also added a pink cachou to each little nose...

... as well as carefully-cut-up white melts for the ears, and pink chocolate tails (which I had piped onto baking paper and refrigerated until hard), all by gluing on with more white chocolate.

Finally, I tried my hand at drawing faces on with an edible marker, but I have this to say on that topic: either the brand of marker Bakerella uses is significantly better than the brand I have, or I am just really rubbish at drawing with it. Seriously. I gave up after drawing two mouths, and quickly melted a bit of dark chocolate to make the eyes. In future I'll stick with my piping bag.

And that's it - enjoy! If you are interested in trying these out for yourself, I highly recommend you visit Bakerella's site for more detailed instructions (although I used a lot less frosting than she does - probably just a difference in cake density, as you can use any cake you like).

Also, I must admit I wasn't really expecting to enjoy the taste of these all that much - it looked to me as though they were going to be tremendously overly sweet. But they actually weren't - they were yummy!