Planning a Superhero Birthday

This month my youngest turns four! He's been requesting a superhero birthday party for a few months (without changing his mind - a miracle) so we're going with that. He's requested a "Scooperhero" birthday cake since we received this as a gift from two former students:

He uses this delightful spoon to eat his breakfast every morning but I'm wondering how that's going to make it onto a cake. And he's also requesting that we change the colors to cardinal and gold for Iowa State (his favorite team). So I've been trying to accommodate his requests while not driving myself to the loony-bin.

Here's a few ideas I've been focusing on...

Food
We want to keep it simple so we're thinking cupcakes, a few snacks and some drinks.

chocolate cupcakes with toppers (from Fabulous Features)

other fun snacks with these "labels" (from 3 Sweet P's)

I thought about bottled pop so I can put a cute "FIZZZ" label on them, but we're dealing with preschoolers so we might be sticking to juice-boxes instead...or sippy cups. :)

Decor
Again, focusing on keeping it simple, we're going to have a few signs around and maybe a banner or two. And food is always a great way to decorate simply.

great signage (from Love the Day)

Party Favors
In our area it's customary to send home some treats/favors for each child attending the party. I don't want to spend a lot of money on this but I still want it to be fun.

a mask for each guest when they arrive, adults too? (from 3 Sweet P's)

a Superhero lollipop (from Zakka Life)

and maybe a Superhero bookmark and some Pop Rocks all in a cute Superhero bag.


And then I'll purchase some plates, napkins and cups and we'll call it good. That means I have some work to do.  :)

Have any great Superhero-party-planning advice for this Super Mama?

Cupcake Hamburgers and Cookie Fries

These cupcakes, yes, cupcakes, were inspired by Bakerella. She does some amazing things with cake and this is just another example of her creativity. The french fries are sugar cookies with extra sugar on them to look like salt. The buns are yellow cupcakes and the burgers are brownies. So yummy and so cute.

Bakerella had used this idea for Father's Day. She even has templates for baskets, tissue paper, and fry bags. But I didn't have the time or resources to print out my own material so my husband made a trip to DQ and bought 24 little baskets and 24 paper sacks for $2. Totally worth it. We wrapped each basket in plastic wrap before placing in the paper sack. They really turned out cute. My son thought I was "tricking" on him when he bit into the "burger." So cute!!


I thought this would make a cute 4th of July treat for a picnic we went to. They were a hit. Next time I'm going to work on not making my frosting too runny and making my cupcakes a little smaller.

Check out Bakerella for the full "tutorial." And don't forget to dispose of your waste properly. ;)

Decorated Cupcakes

After the Sunflower Cupcakes I made for a baby shower, I was hired to bake cupcakes for a bridal shower. I had one of the party planners look through the book I had (Hello, Cupcake!) and she picked the Black and White Cupcakes...but we went with the colors: brown, blue, and white.

After visiting half a dozen stores, I found all the candy and sprinkles I needed to make these adorable cupcakes. I liked making these because once I decided on how to decorate them, it wasn't so hard on my brain. But they were time consuming. I wanted them to look professional so I took more time to get the coloring right (still didn't quite get the bright blue I was going for, but it still coordinated with the lighter blue of the sprinkles).


My supplies:

1 box of white cake mix (I added in 2 tsp almond flavoring)
1 box of triple chocolate chunk cake mix

2 containers white vanilla frosting
1 container chocolate frosting
blue & yellow food coloring

pastel giant confetti
white nonpereils
chocolate sprinkles
white M'n'M's
blue salt-water taffy
baha blue Starbursts
Whoppers
licorice salt-water taffy

(bought and returned: 4-pack of white Tic-Tac's, Trolli sour worms, 1 lg box Jr. Mints)

My husband helped me decorate these cupcakes, and I think they turned out pretty cute.

Sunflower Cupcakes

I made these cupcakes for a women's ministry baby shower on Sunday. I got the idea from one of my favorite books Hello, Cupcake! by Karen Tack and Alan Richardson.

Some things I learned:

1. I need to work on my frosting skills. I'm not great at making petals and they looked a lot better as I went along.
2. Let the frosting "rest" between flowers. Otherwise the heat from my hands softened the frosting too much and it got really runny.
3. I would use food coloring paste instead of the liquid. That would also decrease the risk of the frosting getting too runny or soft.
4. I used melted chocolate chips instead of the chocolate frosting for the ladybugs. I didn't want to open a whole jar of frosting for a few teaspoons. I used a toothpick to decorate the ladybugs and used the melted chips to "glue" the bugs to the flowers.
5. I wouldn't decorate them ahead of time. I could make the cupcakes and put the green frosting on a day ahead, but the Oreo cookies get soggy (yuck!).
6. I'd only use the regular size Oreos (not the Mini-Oreos) until I get better at frosting them. They were very hard to frost because: my skills are lacking, they're really small, my frosting was soft, and my skills are lacking.

Overall, I think they turned out cute and I even got asked to make some cupcakes for a bridal shower coming up. Sounds like fun to me.

Perfect Cake-Mix Cupcakes

Here's the cake-mix cupcake recipe from Hello, Cupcake.

You can use any standard cake mix, but avoid those with pudding in the mix and steer clear of lighter cake mixes such as angel food, since cupcake projects need a firm cake that will hold up when it's decorated. If you don't have buttermilk on hand, you can make a fair substitution by adding 1 tbsp lemon juice to 1 cup whole milk. Let sit for 10 minutes to sour. (Actual buttermilk is better.)

1 box (18.25 oz) cake mix (French vanilla, devil's food, or yellow)
1 cup buttermilk (in place of the water called for on the box)
vegetable oil (the amount on the box)
4 large eggs (in place of the number called for on the box)

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line 24 muffin cups with paper liners.
2. Follow the box instructions, putting all the ingredients in a large bowl and using the buttermilk in place of the water specified (the box will call fro more water than the amount of buttermilk you are using), using the amount of vegetable oil that is called for (typically, white or yellow cakes call for 1/3 cup; the chocolate cakes usually call for 1/2 cup), and adding the eggs. Beat with an electric mixer until moistened, about 30 seconds. Increase the speed to high and beat until thick, 2 minutes longer.
3. Spoon half of the batter into a ziplock bag. Snip a 1/4-inch corner from the bag and fill the paper liners two-thirds full. Repeat with remaining batter. Bake until golden and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, 15 to 20 minutes. Remove the cupcakes from the baking pans, place on a wire rack, and allow to cool completely.
   

First Birthdays

On Sunday we celebrated my youngest son's first birthday. It was a modest party with friends and family from our church. We served cupcakes, ice cream and pretzel rods.


My cupcake idea came from a book entitled Hello, Cupcake by Karen Tack and Alan Richardson. They have some really creative ideas for decorating cupcakes. And they have a great recipe in the back for vamping up your cupcakes from a box mix. They also have "from scratch" cupcake recipes and frosting recipes too. Just can't get enough of it!!