Last week Goose invited four of her favourite friends to come over to help her celebrate her tenth birthday with a baking party. They had lots of fun baking and decorating and making a big mess in our kitchen!
Here is a little run down of what we did …
Here is a little run down of what we did …
1. Decorated Chef’s hats.
I picked up these cute little hats at a garage sale during the year and the girls decorated them with fabric markers.
2. Made shortbread cookies.
Using this fail-safe recipe I pre-made the shortbread and the girls just rolled and cut into shape with the plethora of cookie cutters we seem to have collected over the years.
My best ever and most faithful party helper – my Mum – couldn’t do it without her!
3. Melted chocolate.
We dipped everything into that chocolate!
Strawberries dipped in chocolate. They were lucky to make it to the tray!
Our favourite chocolate dipped grissini wands.
Chocolate dipped Oreo pops.
Chocolate alphabet moulds.
(which I totally forgot to get out of the fridge!)
4. Decorated cupcakes
Goose and I pre-made the cupcakes and gave the girls a bag of white icing and a multitude of coloured sprinkles of varied shapes and sizes to decorate their cupcakes. They got to keep their first one to take home in a special cake box and the rest went on the dessert table for later.
For something different we baked the cupcakes with edible confetti* inside!
Decorate the birthday cake!!!
Just like the cupcakes Goose and I baked this the day before the party and added sprinkles to it, but we used the regular hundreds and thousands for the cake which, although was fun, did not have quite the same awesome confetti affect as the cupcakes.
I was all prepared to have to bite my tongue and turn a blind eye to an icing and sprinkle explosion all over the cake when five ten year olds were let loose on it, but I was pleasantly surprised!
They were each given an icing bag containing a different colour and they all squeezed their colour onto the cake while I quickly smoothed it out with a knife, which created a mixed colour affect which was pretty cool and a blank canvas for them to decorate. The girls, then worked together as a team to design the rest. I was quite impressed with their result.
The sides of the cake were covered in popping candy which kept exploding at various intervals throughout the day much to the delight of the girls.
I had an area already set up for them to display their delicious goodies where they were on display until after dinner.
The gorgeous bakers. Although there were only five of them – the sugar, colouring and party high they were on certainly made a LOT of noise!
Then when Goose’s 2 younger siblings, 4 younger cousins, 3 aunts, 3 uncles and her other Grandma arrived we made pizzas
and played party games …
Pin the cherry on the cupcake
(made by the birthday girl)
Click on the link above for details of how to play.
This game was such a hit that all they wanted to do was stick their face in the flour. Usually when we play it, they all want to avoid it, but possibly the excess of food colouring and sugar went to their heads this time ![;)]()
To finish it off, we ate cake !!!
(and all of the other delicious goodies the girls had made)
Drinks
water bottles (something had to counteract the sugar!) and lemon cordial.
The girls also tried dipping these glass bottles (below) in chocolate – you can see them at the bottom right in some of the dessert table pics above.
After the extended family left, Goose’s four lovely friends stayed for a sleepover where they painted their nails, watched a movie and stayed up all night talking!
As the party guests left, depending on age, they were given
‘Cookies in a jar‘, a cookie cutter and a party bag** as well as a cupcake they had decorated, the shortbread they had made and their chef’s hat.
I quite like this party format that we have going for Goose now that she is older. We did the same thing last year. A small number of friends for a few hours while her younger siblings go to their cousins for a play and then extended family (and siblings return) come over for dinner which includes birthday cake and party games (so the younger siblings & cousins don’t think they’ve missed out on the party) and then the friends stay for a sleepover (which for Goose is apparently not negotiable). Helps having your birthday during the summer holidays! It probably sounds like a loooooong party, but we made sure dinner was simple and mostly pre-prepared and in this case – the girls spent their time together actually making most of the party food!! I think we’ll be using the same format again as it saves having two separate parties to accommodate friends and family and allows Goose some time with just her friends her own age.
Pics of the invites that we made for this party can be found here.
To see more of Goose’s (and her siblings) birthday parties
you can click on the drawing of the cake below …
* purchased at Spotlight.
** The party bag was small and simply contained some lollies, cupcake stickers and some cupcake shaped lipgloss.