Sporty 3rd Birthday!

This year was a fun year for my sons birthday, this was the first year he really understood what was going on and he talked about for weeks before. Every morning he would talk about his party and who he wanted to invite, he told me what kind of cake he wanted, and he told us (what seemed like every minute) what toys and games he wanted. He was ready to turn 3! (It meant that he wasn't little anymore.)

Daddy and the birthday boy!

We originally wanted to have the party at the local fire house, but supposedly there was an event that day (I don't recall anything going on, which is very disappointing, hopefully it was just rescheduled). So we switched gears and went for a Sports Themed All-Star Party. We used our church fellowship hall which is also a gym, so there was plenty of room for kids to run. There was also a playground outside that we ended up using also. My son had a blast! He told us how much he liked it, it was great!

Here is what we did, the invitations were from Simone Made It, I really recommend her products, they were really easy to use and she has a pretty large variety of different party themed packages.

This is the one we used, the ticket invitation is what sold me!

www.simonemadeit.com

Even though I made up everything, I ended up only using the invitation and the bag toppers.  I ran out of time setting up and I decided I wasn't going to try to control a room of 2-3 year olds.

The cake is always my favorite part.  My son loves chocolate and that is all he wanted, I decided on doing half chocolate and half yellow.  He kept telling me he wanted a tiered cake like on the cover of Dr. Seuss' Happy Birthday to You!  But I wasn't going to make a tiered cake for a 3 year old.  I was looking on Pinterest, like I do way too often, and came across a really neat cake in the shape of a 3, so I used that as my inspiration. You can see my inspiration here.  It was really easy, make two bundt cakes and cut to form a 3, (I used boxed cakes so no recipes sorry.)  I decided to ice the cake to look like balls to keep with the theme. 

 I wish it was a little cleaner, but I must admit it is was hard to ice the inside of the bundts. No one seemed to mind other than me, or at least no one said anything.  

When it came to the other snacks, we decided to keep with ball park flavors.  We had "nachos", Corn dog bites, peanuts, and just for a healthy alternative, a veggie platter.

Since I couldn't eat the cake, I decided that I wanted the snacks to be GF so I could enjoy them also.  For the nachos, I made a really quick queso of Velveeta and Ro*tel served with corn chips. For every 16 oz. of Velveeta I used one 10 oz. can of Ro*tel.

The corn dogs, I must admit I was really excited about these.  I used a mini muffin pan, you could use a larger one but I wanted hot dog in each bite.  I made corn muffins, using Bob's Red Mill GF Corn Bread Mix and added a piece of hot dog to each muffin, about 1/2 inch slice.  Baked them according to the package, they only took about 12-15 minutes. They were so good, I could have eaten the whole batch! 

I think the party went well, my son told me he had a great time with his friends.  I will definitely have his parties some where other then our house from now on, or at least until he decides to only have a couple friends over (which hopefully will be soon.) I have a lot of ideas for future parties, granted if he will think they are as cool as I do, well that is a different story all together.  

Some random birthday pictures:

Getting ready to blow out the candles!

Outside playing with friends!

Super Chocolate Cake with a Homemade Fluff Icing

Today is my husbands birthday, and for some reason (he said it was because of his mother) I always thought his favorite type of cake was Angel Food...and was prepared to make him a from scratch Angel Food cake.  Well, I was wrong.  He told me his favorite type of cake would be a chocolate cake with chocolate chips, something super chocolaty and the frosting should be a whipped cream frosting or a marshmallow frosting.  So I am not one to argue chocolate, I reevaluated and planned to make something extra chocolaty with a marshmallow icing.  The results, well...awesome!  For the icing I was originally going to use my recipe for marshmallows and pipe it on top in little peaks, but right when I was getting ready to make it he seemed disappointed and wanted something more like an icing.  So once again, and last minute, I changed up my plan. 

The marshmallow icing makes about 6 cups, that is a lot of icing.  (So far it seems to be storing well in an airtight container at room temperature.)  When I started to coat the cake, it spread...it spread on the cake, off the stand, and on to the table.  I was getting really worried.  Worried that there would be nothing left between the layers and nothing left on top, I was even concerned that the top layer was going to slide off.  So I put the top on my cake board and hoped for the best!  In the photo above you can see it is still oozing, by the time we took the cover off there was at least 3/4 of an inch of fluff around the base.  But some how there was still plenty of fluff in the middle and on top, and it still tasted AWESOME!!

Super Chocolate Cake
(inspired by Hershey's "Especially Dark" Chocolate Cake)

2 cups sugar
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cups cocoa powder (Hershey's Special Dark Cocoa)
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 cup boiling water
1-10 oz. bag of dark chocolate morsels
Homemade Marshmallow Fluff Icing
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour two 9-inch cake pans.

Stir together sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, soda and salt in a large bowl. Add eggs, milk, oil, and vanilla; beat on medium speed for about 2 minutes. Stir in boiling water (batter will be thin). Stir in chocolate morsels.  Pour into prepared pans.  Bake for 30-35 minutes or wooden pick comes out clean.  Cool, cover with marshmallow fluff icing.

Marshmallow Fluff Icing
(inspired by Food & Wine's Marshmallow Icing)

5 large egg whites
1 2/3 cups sugar
2 tablespoons cold water
1 1/2 cups light corn syrup
Pinch of cream of tartar

Bring 1 inch of water to a boil in a wide saucepan. In a large stainless steel bowl, whisk the egg whites with the sugar, water and corn syrup until blended. Set the bowl over the saucepan and whisk the whites until the sugar is completely melted, 4 to 5 minutes. Rub some of the mixture between your fingers to be sure it's not gritty.

Remove the bowl from the saucepan and add the cream of tartar to the whites. Using a standing electric mixer, beat the egg whites at medium speed for 1 minute to break them up. Gradually increase the speed to high and beat until the icing is fluffy, firm and no longer warm to the touch, about 10 minutes. Beat in the vanilla. Use right away or put in a covered container and leave at room temperature.

Enjoy!

Balloon Birthday Cake

My son just turned two, he has been really into the movie UP and balloons in general. We were even characters from the movie for Halloween, I was Kevin and my son was Russell. But anyway on to the birthday...

I have been thinking about his cake for a while, last year I made sesame street cupcakes. I thought awhile trying to figure out what would make good balloons, cake pops ended up being the answer. This was my first time making them and I need to work on my covering skills. This was also my first time using fondant to cover a cake, it was a little harder than I thought it would be, it was my arm work out for the day!

Well because of time I "cheated" and used box mix for the cake. I used yellow and chocolate, even though my son only wanted chocolate. He also helped me make the cakes. I made two 9" round cakes (one in each flavor) and the rest of the cake we put in a 13"x9" pan, which my son decided to make marbled. The 13"x9" was used for the cake pops (directions follow). Once cooled I layered the 9" round cakes with a layer of white frosting between, I then covered the cake with more white frosting (tinted blue). I bought pre-made fondant, it was by Wilson and is ready to roll. I had blue and green that was never used from last year, and I bought new white. I rolled out and covered the cake with the white and then added "jungle grass" in green around the cake. It didn't turn out quite like I pictured in my head, I guess that is what happens when you try new things with a time constraint.

Cake Pops:
One 13"x9" sheet cake
About 2 cups of icing
Melting chocolate (I used Wilson brand)
Lollipop sticks
Styrofoam block

In a large bowl crumble the cake and add the icing. Mix well, I used my hands. Shape the mixture and place on a sheet pan lined with wax paper. Place in the refrigerator to harden, you could also put in the freezer if you have less time. Once the cake is firm, melt the chocolate (use directions on the bag). Dip the stick in the chocolate then carefully insert it into the cake. Cover the cake with the chocolate, by dipping or using a spoon. Stick it in a styrofoam block to dry. Repeat until all cake is used, I made about 2 dozen.  The amount will depend on the size you make the pop.