Batman Birthday Party

My son celebrated his 5th birthday party recently with a Batman themed birthday party. Originally Lucas wanted a generic superheroes theme, but we narrowed it down to just Batman in order to keep my stress levels down!


First up was creating the Batman invitations. You can read the full process for making these invitations here.


My cupcakes were going to be decorated with bat sprinkles, but unfortunately these were out of stock so I had to make do with plain black sprinkles. I made the cupcake wrappers myself using black cardstock and the Cricut- they say Happy Birthday.

The food consisted of these cupcakes, fresh pineapple, ham and cheese toasted sandwiches, yellow jellybeans (purchased in bulk from The Lolly Shop), peanut butter truffles rolled in yellow sprinkles, batman cookies (using this cookie cutter) and Cheerio sausages, because my husband tells me it isn't a party without Cheerios.


For the tableware I went with yellow and black, as a lot of the specific Batman items were the new grey and blue style and Lucas really wanted lots of black. I used a plain black tablecloth, yellow paper cups, yellow plates, black napkins and some black treat cups.


We even had a special appearance from Batman himself! My Dad is always dressing up in costumes so this was brilliant, and all of the little boys were so excited.


We played a fun game outside to get the kids moving called Musical Superhero Sounds. I printed these printable comic bubbles to A4 size and laminated them, then laid them out on the ground. We played some music, and when the music ended each child had to jump on one of the sounds. I removed a sound each time, and so a child would get "out" each round. The game ended when only one child jumped on the remaining comic bubble.


It wouldn't be a birthday without a cake! I used my tried and true chocolate cake recipe, and spread the cake with yellow icing. I made the topper at a Superhero Themed workshop, which worked out perfectly!

Lucas was very excited to see his Batman cake, and blew out his back candles.

All in all, we had a great Batman themed birthday party and Lucas really enjoyed the games, food and cake. Now to think about next year's birthday theme!

Linking up with Pin Me Party and Kitchen Fun with My 3 Sons!

Winter Wonderland Choc Peppermint Cake

I know a lot of my readers celebrate Christmas during winter, so today I have the perfect recipe for you!

This chocolate cake is light and fluffy, with a hint of peppermint and a rich chocolate glaze. The addition of snowflake sprinkles make this the perfect Christmas showstopper cake, or you can substitute any other type of Christmas sprinkles. If you are in the Southern Hemisphere like me, you could use a mixture of red and green sprinkles instead of snowflakes.

You will need:

• 3/4 cup butter
• 3 eggs
• 1 3/4 cups  all-purpose flour
• 1/3 cup milk powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2/3 cup dark cooking chocolate, chopped
• 1 cup white sugar
• 3/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons peppermint essence
• 1 1/4 cups water

• 1 tablespoon milk powder
• 2 tablespoons boiling water
• 3/4 cup dark cooking chocolate, chopped
• 1/3 cup butter, cut up
• 1 tablespoon light-color corn syrup
• Christmas sprinkles to decorate

1. Allow 3/4 cup butter and eggs to stand at room temperature for 30 minutes. Meanwhile, in a medium bowl stir together flour, 1/3 cup milk powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
2. In a small microwave-safe bowl microwave chocolate in 30 second bursts until melted. Cool slightly.
3. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. In a large mixing bowl beat 3/4 cup butter with both sugars until well combined, Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in melted chocolate and peppermint essence. 
4. Alternately add flour mixture and 1 1/4 cups water to chocolate mixture, beating on low speed after each addition just until combined. Pour batter into a bundt cake pan, spreading evenly.
5. Bake for 55 to 60 minutes or until a wooden toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool in pan on a wire rack for 15 minutes. Remove cake from pan; cool completely on wire rack.

6. Meanwhile, for glaze, stir together 1 tablespoon milk powder and the boiling water until milk powder is dissolved. Add the 3/4 cup chocolate, 1/3 cup butter, and corn syrup. Mincrowave on medium power for one minute until melted and smooth. Cover and chill for 30 to 40 minutes or until glaze is slightly thickened, stirring occasionally.
7. Drizzle glaze over cake. Top with sprinkles and serve.

As you can see, the cake was very popular!

Linking up with Fall Into the Holidays and Wow Me Wednesday.

Lego City Birthday Party

My boy Lucas recently turned four, and the excitement was high for at least a month beforehand. He requested a Lego City birthday party, and his birthday wishlist was Lego, Lego and more Lego. I turned to the place I know has great party supplies- Sweet Pea Parties.

The first thing I did was create an invite. You can get Lego City invitations but I always like to create my own, so here is what I came up with using my digital scrapbooking software and a free Lego font from dafont.com.

I started off with the basics- Lego City decor for the table! Cups, plates and napkins were easy to find to match the theme. For everything else, I tied in the colours of blue, red and white to match the police car and firetrucks featured in the Lego City range.

One of the big things is food- and once again I went with the Lego theme as well as the red, white and blue colour scheme. My biggest gamble was making Lego Block Jelly as outlined in my previous blog post about things off Pinterest that I wanted to try out. To my surprise, it worked really well! All I did was put different jelly colours in Megablocks and left to set.

Ta-da!

I also made lego blocks and Lego men out of silicone moulds using Yellow Candy Melts and Red Candy Melts. The yellow ones made cute Lego men, and I also used them to make my Lego Man Head Pops using the Wilton Lollipop Sticks, drawing on the faces with a green icing pen.

 

The red melts were great on the cake as well as the cupcakes, which I wrapped in the Indigo Baking Cups.

I also made Lego pizzas for something savoury to snack on.

We also served Cheerios with tomato sauce ( a must for any birthday party according to my husband), crackers with cheese circles cut to look like Lego blocks, mini savouries, red, blue and yellow M&Ms and some fruit salad cups.

The fruit salad cups were banana, strawberries and blueberries to match the theme colours and presented in the cute icecream cups with red spoons. The cutlery was contained in a special Lego box that Lucas made.

The kids ate at a separate table covered with a Blue Table Cloth to contain any spills or tomato sauce slops.

To keep the kids entertained while I prepped the food, I printed out some Lego Minifigures and the kids had fun colouring them in- even some of the adults had a go!

Of course, the most anticipated item at a birthday party is usually the cake, and this year was no exception. Lucas helped me to make my go-to chocolate cake recipe.



Using a silicone mould and a square cake tin, I made a Lego Man on top of a sheet cake to create a two layered cake.



The cake was made using Navy Blue, Ruby Red, and Yellow fondant, as well as some blue buttercream icing and homemade black modelling chocolate. The thing I loved most about the fondant was that it actually had a flavour to it- the red was yummy! I am not a cake decorating expert by any means but I was pleased with the end result- and Lucas loved his Lego Man cake. I stuck some candles on it and we were ready to go.



The guests each left with a Lego City goodie bag full of chocolate and a Lego City Notepad.



And yes, Lucas did get all the Lego that was on his wishlist thanks to generous family and friends!


For more ideas and instructions, please visit my Lego Birthday Party Pinterest board.

 Linking up with Kitchen Fun and Crafty Friday!