Unicorn Birthday Party

Miriam Hancock June 25, 2017

Unicorns seem to be the craze at the moment for young girls, so I wasn’t too surprised when Little Miss M asked for a Unicorn themed birthday party. I have being loving all of the unicorn cakes that come up on my feed, so was quietly excited that I got to make one.

Her birthday cake was a 7” chocolate cake with chocolate ganache, and covered in fondant. The unicorn horn was made from yellow coloured gumpaste, and then painted with gold edible paint. Little Miss M picked out the colours for the mane and I piped the buttercream onto the cake using a Wilton 2M tip.

When I made the unicorn horn for the cake, I also made little unicorn horns for the cupcakes and cakepops. I left these for a few days to harden and painted them also with the gold edible paint. The ears for the unicorn cake, cupcakes and cakepops were made with fondant and a little bit of Tylose mixed in. These were also made a few days ahead of time to give them time to harden, as I didn’t want the buttercream to make them soft.

The vanilla cupcakes were iced with buttercream coloured with Americolor Soft Pink and Americolor Avocado . When I pipe with buttercream I always put the buttercream on plastic wrap, roll into a tube and then put this in the piping bag. Then when I have finished I pull the plastic wrap out and dispose of it, and the piping bag is still relatively clean. In this instance I made two small plastic wrap tubes - 1 pink and 1 green and put both into the piping bag. Then when I was piping it swirled the two colours together.

I was dreading the cake pops as I knew trying to get the unicorn horn and little ears on them was going to be a fiddly job. It wasn’t nearly as bad as I had thought, as I used melted white chocolate to put the horns and ears on, and they stuck like glue. In fact, the cakepops were my favourite thing on the dessert table.

On our trip to the gold coin shop to get supplies, my daughter found the green and white polka dot popcorn cases to use as the goodie bags. We put some tissue paper in them, and filled them up with some treats for her friends.

I found the following printables on Pinterest -

Unicorn Poop – I printed the tag onto sticker paper, cut them out, and then peeled and attached to Tic Tac containers.

Rainbow Seeds – I used skittles to fill little bags and then printed and stapled the labels onto the bags. When I was filling the bags I had them on kitchen scales so each bag had exactly the same amount of Skittles, so no need to count them.

Pink, White, and Gold Birthday Party

Miriam Hancock June 12, 2016

Last year I planned to do a cute ballerina themed birthday party for my daughter. I had pins on my Pinterest board with pink themed dessert tables, pink ballerina cakes and other pink food goodies.

Planning was going well…until my daughter attended her friend’s birthday which was Frozen themed. So of course, my daughter wanted a Frozen themed party as well……sadly I had to say goodbye to my pink décor and embrace the blue!!

This year she didn’t mention anything about a particular theme, so I decided to go with Pink, White and Gold which seems to be popular at the moment. The good part was no figurines to make, as they are not my strong point.

I decided to go with a 7” chocolate cake, layered with vanilla buttercream, encased with milk chocolate ganache and covered in fondant. The top layer was a 5” white chocolate mud cake, also layered with vanilla buttercream, encased with white chocolate ganache and covered in fondant.

I used Americolor Dusty Pink to colour my fondant, and cake board. The gold was brushed on using Metallic Light Gold edible paint by Rainbow Dust. For the name plaque I used the Vladimir Script font in Microsoft Word, flipped it horizontally, and printed it out. I then traced it with parchment paper using a pencil. After rolling out my fondant and using a circle cutter, I flipped my name to the correct side and traced this on the fondant. You can then see the outline of the font, and then use edible paint or an edible pen to write on the fondant. In this instance I used a black edible pen.

The gold balls were made a couple of days before I assembled the cake, and didn’t work out well. They were made with white fondant, left to harden and then painted with the same Metallic Light Gold edible paint that I used on the cake. As they were hard they would not stick to the cake, and kept falling off. So I made new balls out of white fondant, and while they were still soft stuck them to the cake. When they dried I then painted them gold, and the next morning gave them another touch of paint.

For the cupcake toppers a couple of days before the party I rolled out white fondant mixed with a bit of tylose, and cut out heart shapes. The night before I painted them with the Metallic Light Gold edible paint, and left them to dry. They were then nice and hard the next day, and wouldn’t go soft while sitting in the buttercream on the cupcakes.

The cake pops were made using leftover cake and ganache. I dipped them in pink coloured white chocolate, and when the chocolate was set I painted Metallic Light Gold edible paint on them.

On Pinterest I found a tutorial on how to make the tassel garland. They were very easy to make, the hardest part was trying not to burn my fingers with the hot glue gun!!

Mason’s Ice-Cream Party

Miriam Hancock December 19, 2015

This year we decided to have Mason’s birthday party early, as his birthday is in January which is in the middle of the summer school holidays here. So all of his friends go away, and he doesn’t have anyone to come to his party. We had his party the day after school finished for the year, which worked out really well as all of his friends came. He didn’t want a birthday cake this year, and as he loves ice-cream I decided on an ice-cream dessert table.

I brought the ice-cream tubs a few months ago on sale, and then found some digital paper that was similar to make the bunting on the table.

A few hours before the party I pre-rolled the ice-cream, put on a baking sheet and then put in the freezer. Next time I would do this the night before as they were still quite soft. This made it a lot easier when you had a line of hungry boys lined up waiting on ice-cream.

The chocolate sundae cupcakes were chocolate cupcakes covered in buttercream, drizzled in chocolate sauce and topped with a glace cherry. Even though cherries are in season here they are very expensive.

The ice-cream cake pops were really easy to make, and looked great on the table. When I asked some of the boys what flavour ice-cream they wanted they pointed to the cake pops, as they thought they were real ice-cream in cones.

Ice-Cream Cake Pops

I made extra cupcakes when I made my chocolate sundae cupcakes, and put the extras in a food processor and made into fine crumbs. You can also use cake scraps as well.

I then added a couple of Tbsp of the leftover buttercream, and pulsed until it was all combined. You should then be able to form into balls, if not add more buttercream until you can form balls.

You will need your ice-cream cone now to check the size of the cake ball. I used twice the amount of cake ball that I would normally use if I was putting them on a stick. Roll your cake ball and check that it fits inside the ice-cream cone. Place on a greaseproof lined tray. When you have rolled all of your cake balls put them in the fridge to harden up - about 20/30 minutes.

Now they have hardened melt your chocolate (melts or candy melts), and with a spoon drizzle just inside the cone where the cake ball will sit. Then place one of the cake balls in the cone. Continue until you have all of the cake balls in the cones. Put them back in the fridge for 15 mins for the chocolate to harden.

When the cake balls have set in the cones re-melt the chocolate again, and dip each cake ball into the melted chocolate. Then spoon sprinkles over top and leave to set.

Frozen Dessert Table

Miriam Hancock June 15, 2015

Emme’s birthday was coming up and as she has started dancing lessons this year I had visions of a pretty pink ballerina cake, pink and white decorations, and a lovely pink dessert table. I had pins stuck onto my Pinterest board and was getting excited about her birthday party. Well……all of that went out the window when Emme received an invite to a Frozen birthday party!!! So it was no longer a pretty pink ballerina party, as she also wanted a Frozen party……arghhhhhhh. So my visions of pink were replaced with blue.

She also wanted a buttercream swirl cake with snowflakes on it, just like her friend had. So after a bit of compromising we ended up with two cakes…..the one I wanted and the one she wanted.

The fondant cake was a 5” chocolate cake with chocolate ganache and then covered in fondant. For the icicles I used my extruder, which is a life saver but still a time consuming job putting them on. As you can see figurines are not my strong point, and I struggle with getting the right proportions. That is why I went for something a bit more cartoon/caricature style.

The buttercream cake was a 7” white chocolate cake covered in ombre rose swirls. This turned out to be an expensive cake as I ended up breaking my scrapper blade when I started to cream the butter!! I had softened the butter, but after starting the mixer it went around once, made a snapping noise and the blade broke. So it was a rush to find another blade in the cupboard. Then I had a bit of a colour mix up with the top layer of rose swirls. As you can see it is more green than light blue. This is due to New Zealand butter been very yellow, due to our cows been grass fed. So if you mix yellow and a little bit of blue, of course you get green!!! I was halfway around the top layer when Emme asked “Why’s the top green Mummy?” Opps I was in such a rush I hadn’t even noticed, and with the party in about an hour I was not going to scrap it off and start again!!!

The snowflakes were made with fondant mixed with a bit of tylose (CMC). I made these a couple of days prior to the party so they could harden up. You need to make them at least the night before (the longer the better), otherwise they might start to soften when you place them on the buttercream.

Emme dressed up in her Frozen costume in front of her dessert table.

Call Of Duty Dessert Table

Miriam Hancock January 19, 2015

I always make a special cake and a dessert table for my kids birthday. When I asked Mason what cake he wanted this year it was no surprise that he replied “Call Of Duty” as it’s his favourite Playstation game.

I made an 8” chocolate cake, covered in chocolate ganache for the bottom tier, and the top tier was a small 6” white chocolate cake with white chocolate ganache. If I’m making a black or red cake I always use the pre coloured fondant from Satin Ice. It is more expensive than the Bakels I would normally use and colour, but it is a lot easier (less stressful) to use. For the face on the bottom, and the lettering on the top I made templates out of cardboard. I then used white gel colouring to sponge on the bottom, and a paint brush for the lettering on top.

I wasn’t really organised for the backdrop, and should have brought some camo netting. But as I left it to the last minute it was a DIY job. I got some black netting from our local hardware store, and some green spray paint. Hubby tied some ripped up rubbish bags onto the netting and spray painted it. When it had dried I then put it up against a black table cloth on the wall.

The kids loved the blood syringes. These were really easy to make - red jelly as per instructions on the packet, let it cool down a bit and then suck up into the syringes, and then into the fridge to set.

I used red licorice for the TNT, and then thin blacks strips of licorice to tie them together.

The chocolate cupcakes were iced in camo coloured buttercream. For the water bottles and noodle boxes, I printed out pictures from the internet and glued these on.

As you can see it doesn’t cost a large amount to do your own dessert table. I always buy noodle boxes, or paper bags from the discount stores and then decorate them myself. It is the same with the backdrops and other decorations, I always buy from discount stores and make what I can to keep the costs down.