Tea Party for Aryana!

Tea Party for Aryana!

My dear friend and neighbor, Mona asked me if I would put together a tea party for Aryana's 4th birthday! How could I say no! I love doing this stuff and I have made Aryana's birthday cakes every year so far.

I found this cute tea kettle and decided to use this as our theme. I wanted to make pom-pom flowers instead of use fresh. I really liked the bold colors for this party and they were cheaper than real flowers.

I made a lot of pom-pom flowers. We hung them from the light fixtures and in these arches as you walk in the door. 

These tables were for all the kids.

We added tulle to the chairs to make them not seem so folding chair-ish!=)

I made the banner out of pinwheels I found at Hobby Lobby. I just hot glued them together. For her name I just added paper doilies and the letters (cut out with my cricut) to the pendants.

The first table:

Almond bark covered strawberries, wafer cookies dipped in almond bark and chocolate pretzels. I melted Rolo candy over pretzels in the oven for a few minutes in 150 degrees. I topped them with either pink or white (from a Valentine mix) M&M's or a pecan (to make a turtle.) I drizzled the turtles with blue and yellow chocolate melts.

Meat, crackers, and veggies. 

Kid friendly sandwiches cut out with tea kettle and cup cookie cutters.

Second table:

More treats. My friend bought me these cute heart serving platers for my birthday last year.

This is Mona's cute tea kettle!

This was the table for the adults. There was some amazing food here! 

Rolo pretzels

 trawberries.

Wafers dipped in chocolate.

Mini cupcakes: vanilla cake with cream cheese frosting. I painted stripes of yellow, teal, and pink on the inside of a piping bag and added the frosting and piped it on using tip 1M.

Here are the place settings we came up with. Mona found these cute mats that the kids could color and do activities on, that's why we included crayons. She also found the paper plates and plastic tea cups online so we didn't have to do dishes. Smart lady!

Aryana's birthday cupcake and candle.

The take homes. I love the purses!

Tea cup suckers!

She gave these sunglasses to the boys...

And these cute hats to the girls!

Happy Birthday Aryana!

Trolls Birthday Party

Lucy wanted to do a trolls themed party for her 6th birthday. She loved that movie. I did too! The music is so fun!

We found this Poppy wig and she had to have it for her party. Crazy fun!

I was glad the banner I made for her 1st birthday matched her colors. I just covered the cupcakes with troll pictures for fun!

She wanted strawberry cupcakes (cake mix) with cream cheese frosting. 

The world may not be all cupcakes and rainbows sometimes but it was for Lucys party today!

For the rainbows: we piped on teal frosting, cut a slit in the cake and frosting so the Airhead extreme rainbow strip could fit inside, and then piped on white clouds around it. Some of them turned out better than other.

For the swirled frosting: we colored 3 bowls of frosting, pink, lime green, and teal and added them to a piping bag vertically (being careful not to mix them too much). Start with a little at a time. 

We had fun making the take homes. We found fun hair bands, necklaces, socks, coloring pages, and fruit snacks

We made jello popcorn from the best bites cookbook:

8 cups popped popcorn

1/4 C butter (that’s half a stick)
3 T light corn syrup (honey is a good substitute)
1/2 C sugar
1 3.5oz box jello, any flavor (not the sugar free kind)

Preheat oven to 300°F. Line a jelly roll pan with foil or parchment. If using foil, spray lightly with non-stick spray and set aside. Place popcorn in an extra large mixing bowl.

Place butter and syrup in a sauce pan on medium heat. Stir until butter is melted. Add sugar and Jello and stir to combine.

Increase heat and bring to a boil. Then reduce heat so it just simmers. Continue simmering for 5 minutes.

After the sugar mixture simmers for 5 minutes, immediately pour over popcorn in bowl. Be careful, it’s super hot!! Mix right away and keep stirring so everything gets well coated. Spread mixture onto prepared pan and spread out evenly.

Pop in the oven and bake for about 10 minutes.

Remove the pan from the oven and let cool to room temp. Then break into pieces and enjoy! You can certainly eat this un-baked as well and it’s just soft and gooey, but definitely bake it if you’re going to pack it up for giving, or serve it as party food so it will be light and crunchy.

We also made jello jugglers to go with the pizza. Not sure why we didn't use the same colors we used for the popcorn. They were still fun!

Movie party! They loved having a picnic on the floor while they watched Trolls. 

We did a piñata! Too bad my sister wasn't here to make it for her. These cheap ones break so fast.

We used some of Lucy's decorations from her room to create this fun table. The kids loved seeing her as a baby!

Happy 6th Birthday Lucy!

 

Happy New Year cupcakes

We made these to ring in the New Year with friends. 

Too Much Chocolate Cake from Allrecipes.com:

• 1 (18.25 ounce) package devil's food cake mix
• 1 (5.9 ounce) package instant chocolate pudding mix
• 1 cup sour cream
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 4 eggs
• 1/2 cup warm water
• 1 cup mini semi sweet chocolate chips 
• Bake in a jelly roll pan. 350 for 20ish minutes. Once cooled cut cake in half, pipe a damn around the edge of one half of the cake, add raspberry filling to the center and top with other half of cake, and pipe rosettes. Double the frosting recipe.

Raspberry filling
16 oz. frozen raspberries thawed
1/3 cup sugar
3 Tbsp. cornstarch
1 Tbsp. lemon juice
Drain raspberries, reserving liquid. Add enough water to liquid to equal 1 1/4 cups. In large saucepan, combine liquid, sugar, cornstarch and lemon juice; mix well. Heat and stir until mixtures boils and thickens. Cool completely. Stir thawed raspberries into cool mixture.

Patti's Chocolate Frosting:

1/3 cup cocoa

1/4 cup milk

1/2 cup softened butter

1/4 tsp. salt

1 1/2 tsp. vanilla

3 1/2 cup powdered sugar

Hot chocolate mix

We put these hot chocolate baskets together for one of the 12 days of Christmas we are doing with some friends. 

*I know they aren't very exciting but I want to remember this recipe:

Hot Chocolate Mix

4 Tbsp. cocoa powder

1 cup powdered sugar

1 package (16 oz) coffee mate creamer, original

1 box (25.6 oz) powdered non fat milk

1 package (21.8 oz) Nestle quick

We added these cute marshmallow Peeps to go with the regular marshmallows.

I found this tag online to go with it.

The most famous reindeer of all...

Rudolph the red nose reindeer, had a very shiny (and long=) nose...

I made these for my primary class at church. 

I used a cone cellophane bag and filled the bottom with red M&M's and the rest with anything chocolate I could find. I used chocolate: pretzels, peanuts, whoppers, and raisins.

You'll go down in his-tor-y!

Christmas bundt cakes

I thought I would never make another bundt cake again after the wedding but here I am. They are just the perfect size and so yummy.

Vanilla with Raspberry:

Vanilla cake: We used these extra ingredients (cake extender) to go with a white cake mix

1 cup flour

1 tsp. baking powder

3/4 cup sugar

1/2 cup oil

2/3 c milk

1 cup sour cream

1 egg yolk

This is how we prepared it:

Mix dry ingredients in bowl: 1 cake mix, 1 cup flour, and 1 tsp. baking powder

Mix wet ingredients in mixing bowl:1 tsp vanilla, 1 cup sour cream, 3 eggs, 1 egg yolk, 3/4 cup oil, 3/4 cup sugar, and 1/3 cup lemon ** don't add lemon until very last or else it will curdle. 

Bake in greased (we used Bakers Joy) mini bundt cake pan 350 for 12ish minutes

Raspberry filling
16 oz. frozen raspberries thawed
1/3 cup sugar
3 Tbsp. cornstarch
1 Tbsp. lemon juice
Drain raspberries, reserving liquid. Add enough water to liquid to equal 1 1/4 cups. In large saucepan, combine liquid, sugar, cornstarch and lemon juice; mix well. Heat and stir until mixtures boils and thickens. Cool completely. Stir thawed raspberries into cool mixture.

 

White chocolate ganache:

7 1/2 cups white chocolate chips  and 2 1/2 cups cream (3:1 ratio). Microwave 1 minute (50%power) repeat until melted

Chocolate Cake (this is Michelle recipe and it is delicious)

Mix the dry ingredients in bowl: 3/4 cup cocoa powder (adding a little dark is yummy)

1 1/4 cup flour

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/4 tsp. salt

Chocolate part: combine and melt in microwave 30 seconds at time, 1 cup chocolate chips (semi-sweet)

12 Tbsp (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter

Combine wet ingredients in mixing bowl: 4 eggs, 1 1/2 cup sugar, 1 tsp. vanilla, 1 cup buttermilk

Wet+ chocolate+ Dry. 

Bake in greased (we used Bakers Joy) mini bundt cake pan 350 for 12ish minutes.

We topped these with a chocolate ganache. We melted 2 2/3 cup semi sweet chocolate chips and 1 1/3 cup cream (2:1 ratio) in microwave(50% power) for 1 minute and then stirred it. We repeated it every 30 seconds until melted.

*add  some peppermint oil (to taste) to the ganache before you drizzle. 

 Drizzle over the cakes once it has set up a little bit. 

*top with crushed up peppermint candy cane.

We made these for our friends and neighbors.

I found this tag online but it's not available anymore. The only ones I could find are on Etsy. But you could create your own pretty easily.

We made another batch for our teachers.

This time I waited for the white ganache to set up a little more before I drizzled it on. This way it covers up the raspberry filling better. We also added some holly sprinkles. 

Merry Christmas!

Christmas class snack

December class snack:

Boom Chicka Pop, Chex mix, peanuts, white fudge cookies, and M&M's