Birthday Funny Face Biscuits

A quick treat for Mr 6 to take to school to share with his class mates for his birthday. Quick, because he only decided at 5pm the night before that he'd like to take something.

I used a gingerbread recipe (the biscuits don't spread too much when cooking) and then iced them and added a malteser nose. Apparently they went like hot cakes. It's always nice when a last minute decision works out nicely.

Minecraft birthday party

Mr 6 is right into anything he can play on the tablet right now, especially minecraft. So for his birthday party we had a bit of a computer game theme.

The cake was candy crush (because it was made with lollies, surely you can't get a much easier cake than that!)

We had one party game. I wasn't sure how it'd go, seeing as I'd just vaguely invented it in my head, but it worked brilliantly and all the kids, from the 1y/o to the 14 y/o wanted to line up and have a go.

A Pink Fairy Princess Barbie Party

Miss 4 had her birthday recently and is right into everything pink, princesses, fairies, Barbie etc. So I thought I'd share some of my birthday creations.

First of all the cake. We needed 2: cupcakes for the kindy birthday, and a cake for her party.

The cupcakes she designed herself, right down to the direction the strawberry needed to face, and I'm pretty proud of her efforts, I think they look fantastic. Although my cake recipe needed a bit of work..

For the party we baked some slices etc. but also these gingerbread star magic wands. Gingerbread is good for shaped biscuits because it doesn't rise and swell out of shape too much. The kids thought they were terrific. If I had been on M&M duty I would have chosen a different M&M pattern, but Miss 4 knew what she wanted to do, and so I left her to it.

The party favour bags contained a wand bubble blower, a cocktail umbrella straw,  a pencil with eraser, a couple of sweets and a necklace which I made. I had thought I could make them with Miss 4, but the ribbons were just too tricky to thread through the bead holes. But these necklaces were definitely the highlight of the bags, at least 3 of the little girls wore them all weekend. They cost about $1 to make, as the chunky beads were a little on the more expensive side.

We also made crowns at the party. I cut simple crown strips from shiny poster sized cardboard, and let the kids loose with stickers and glitter glue. It kept them busy and happy for about 15 minutes and when they were done, all the early party nerves had vanished.

And last but not least the Barbie cake. Well technically the Lottie doll cake, as that was the doll I was allowed to use according to Miss 4. I baked 2 round cakes and 1 cup cake, and then stacked them together and carved them out. I used an apple corer to take the centre bit out so that the doll's legs could fit in. I wrapped the doll's legs and lower tummy in plastic glad wrap before putting her in to stop the icing getting into her hip joints. I iced with pink butter icing and then the kids and I decorated with tiny marshmallows, some sugar flowers and butterflies and silver balls.


Usually I do the cake decorating all by myself, because I like the design control, but this one we did together, and it was definitely the most fun I've had decorating, and it was also declared the best birthday cake she'd ever had.

A Marble Race Machine Cake

So here it is. The most adventurous cake I've ever made: a marble race machine cake. Designed for a round lolly to roll through it and out onto the top of a cup cake.

And it actually wasn't as difficult to make as you'd think.

I baked 3 cakes in a bread loaf tin, and froze them. I then cut them into flat sided rectangular blocks. I then cut some tracks into them, which was a little fiddly. The tracks went something like this:

I stacked it all together (using chocolate butter icing as the glue) and tweaked it until a Jaffa/Malteser would roll down without getting caught. I used icing to stick wafer biscuits onto the back to stop the Jaffa from flying out at any stage. There are more wafer biscuits under the bottom of the front of the cake, because it was doing a small leaning tower impression. Finally the whole thing was held in place with some skewers from top to bottom, and a few tooth picks for any pointy bits that looked like they needed a bit of extra support (i.e. where the track turned and under the spout at the front).

The decorations were made from white chocolate or mint chocolate biscuits. I melted the white chocolate into a sheet 2 or 3mm thick, and when it had hardened I cut the shapes out using cookie cutters. The gears were made using 2 circle cutters, and the tip of a star shaped cutter for the grooves.

And just to prove it really worked, here's a video from the front, and a second one from the back.

The kids at the party each got their own cup cake (topped with a lolly snake to make a catching ring) and rolled their own Jaffa through the machine to top it. The Jaffas worked better than the Maltesers perhaps because they're smaller and sugar coated. 

The birthday boy was very very happy with it. Mission accomplished. :)

Rocket Cake

Here's my version of a rocket cake I made a while ago. I stuck sparklers in marshmellows at the bottom for the blasters (I'm sure that's not their technical name!). I used choc-mint biscuits for the big circles on the front, because they are covered in chocolate and so wouldn't go soggy in the fridge over-night.

Cars, Roads and Construction Site Cake

This was such an easy birthday cake, because I could just make it around the bulgy shape of the cake as it came out of the oven. The tiny teddy cars were made out of little slices of iced cake, with a teddy biscuit pushed in. The wheel were M&M's and the headlights were made from piped icing. The traffic lights were made out of jubes on tooth picks (I cut dinosaur jubes into squares). The grass beside the road had green died coconut sprinkled on for extra effect. There were 6 little party guests, all very happy with their teddy in a car.

Dora Castle Cake

I love birthdays and I love dreaming up birthday cakes. I was very pleased with how this one turned out. The base is made with 2 square chocolate cakes. I trimmed the side of the cake where the two cakes join to make them sit more neatly together, and then put one of the trimmed pieces as the bottom of the moat.

The castle is made with 1 rectangular cake cake cut into two matching squares. The squares went on top of each other. The trimmed off pieces were used to add to each side of the castle, so I ended up with a cube shape with missing corners where the towers needed to fit. 

The towers were made of small sponge rolls, and the two towers on the top were made from one sponge roll cut into two different length pieces. I dipped small ice cream cones in white chocolate and dusted them with sprinkles for the spires. (I used chocolate to stop the the cones from getting soggy, however they weren't very tasty so runny icing would have also done the trick). The flags were made by gluing some rectangles of pink wrapping paper to cooking skewers. The skewers were then pushed right through the cones and sponge rolls and cake to keep everything in place.

The left over white chocolate was spread on baking paper and I swirled a bit of pink food colouring through to get a marbled effect. I cut out a door shape from the chocolate when it set. The bridge was made from pink wafer biscuits. The whole cake was iced in a thin layer of butter icing, and decorated with tiny marshmallows, sugar flowers and M&Ms. The grass was sprinkled with coconut that had green food colouring rubbed through.

The birthday girl loved it (and so did Mr 4)!