Build a Bear Cake

The mom took the bear and as you can see next put it right next to her work as she was making it. Don’t forget when you are cutting out and preparing your own custom cake that you do it on the serving platter or plate.

Bear Cake Process

Honestly, these are my favorite kind of cakes. You can certainly pay several hundred dollars for a beautifully decorated cake and if you don’t have the time or don’t want to fool with making the cake yourself then I’m not downing the idea at all! I just like to stay up ’til midnight the day before my kids parties to make and decorate home made custom cakes…..ha! Seriously, it does take some time. But the kids love it no matter what it looks like and they do see the time you are putting in to THEIR Birthday cake.

Resources: This cake was made by a friend, Kerry Scroggins, and was willing to allow me to share her masterpiece.

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Magic Show Birthday Party Cake

This cake was made as a layer cake to resemble a magicians hat and then the bunny and wand on top. Between the layers, there was something like a fruit type jam. Hum. Then with the roll out fondants that you can get and make, the creative juices can just flow. Use cookie cutters or cut the designs out yourself!

Have any of you watch the cake maker on HGTV or something like that. These guys are really amazing!

Anyway, this cake was bought from the Beaverton Bakery in Portland OR and really make the theme of the magician birthday party come alive! ADORABLE!

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Flower Cupcakes

We attended a party where the hostess had made these herself. If you could have seen the kids faces, wow. I don’t know if it was the super cute decorations or the fact that each child not only was getting a cupcake to eat but also a sucker. Ha!

To make the flower cupcakes, they were iced with regular white icing. Use any flavor of cupcake….whatever your child prefers. Take the cupcake and dip in yellow sprinkles. Besides the one shown above, there were also ones with orange and green “grass” or base coat. Or sprinkles. Simply stick a sucker the color of your choice and then add some green taffy as the leaf.

I think I overheard the hostess say that she had seen this done before, not sure where. I just thought these Flower Cupcakes were super cute and a big hit with the kids!!!

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Ice Cream Birthday Cakes

Ice cream cakes a wonderful alternative and I’ve never seen an ice cream store that doesn’t make or offer ice creams cakes of some sort. They aren’t always the most creative cakes but what’s to say that you couldn’t get a plain one, take it home and decorate it yourself? I might have to try that and share it with you for one of our parties. Why do you have to do it all???

Depending on the cake, you can experience a few glitches with ice cream cakes. If you don’t plan to eat it at the ice cream store, don’t forget to take along a strong sharp knife to cut the cake. And depending on how hard or soft you want the cake to be when you serve it up, you’ll need to gauge the outdoor temp. The above photo was taken at a party where the ice cream store is right across the street from a water park (aka location of the birthday party). The store didn’t have a knife to share with the host and was relegated to try and cut the cake with a plastic knife!!! It was not a super hot day and it took forever for the cake to get warm enough to serve. Just food for thought!

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Homemade Birthday Cake on Vintage Plate

This one was beautiful. It was the centerpiece of a vintage inspired outdoor birthday party. Pink on a beautiful pink glass cake stand was perfect. I don’t know the name of the glass but I’m sure someone knows. And making it this way insures that it will taste good! And coming from a mom who has tasted a lot of birthday cakes. I certainly love the parties where the cake is good.

So, if you don’t have the money, time or don’t think you have the talent or tools to make a fancy cake, never fear. Just make a pretty cake. It’s all about blowing out the candles anyway. Did you know that?

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Colorful Balloon Birthday Cake

A great way to add color to a birthday cake without looking to generic is to chose a pattern that has large blocks of color. Here this mom was using color to connect the elements of the party and used balloons as the image on the cake. They were big enough and totally colorful enough to have the cake stand out.

Other ideas for using blocks of color on a cake would be to use circles of varying sizes. My daughter is in kindergarten this year and they are studying geometric shapes. That could make a fun cake. Then you could always do a striped cake with the stripes in a pattern of colors or random colors. Even the stripes could be of varying patterns.

If you are having a hard time envisioning it, I’m going to share a secret of mine. Go to the wallpaper store or a high end fabric shop and find a fabric that matches the colors you are using and has the shapes you like. And then use that fabric as inspiration for your cake. There are some really beautiful fabrics out there right now. This should not be a tough one to find. Maybe a tough one to chose from as you’ll like too many of them.

Good luck creating your cake and have a color happy party!

Photo taken by Amy Hall of Amy Hall Photography, Portland, OR.

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Halloween Cupcakes

Kids young and old…….and even moms and dads…..love cupcakes. And there’s nothing better than a cupcake with really good frosting.

These cupcakes were made from a box. Oops. Did I just admit that? The kids don’t want anything fancy and when you are planning a birthday party, in my mind, the cake part of this is just nothing to worry about.

The frosting is my cream cheese frosting colored orange and then bittersweet choc was melted to make the spiderwebs. If you don’t have a piping bag and plan to use a plastic bag like we suggest below, be carefully of putting hot chocolate in it. You might want to opt into using black colored icing instead.

Couple of tips. The Cream cheese frosting doesn’t set hard which is part of what makes it so good. But when you are piping the spiderweb just keep this in mind. Make sure you wait until the cupcakes are cool before icing or it will slide all down the side. Use a good coloring liquid for the icing. The inexpensive ones at the grocery just don’t go very far! And lastly, if you don’t have a piping bag, you can easily do these spiderwebs by putting the chocolate in a zippered plastic bag and cutting a very small hole in one of the bottom corners.

Whether you are having a Halloween Party, a Birthday Halloween Party or just a play date, these Halloween cupcakes are super cute to have set out. And they are yummy to eat.

Resources: Click here for our our Cream Cheese Icing Recipe. For the cake mix, I use Duncan Hines Mix. Bittersweet Chocolate can be found at higher end groceries. Or you can just using icing colored black.

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Halloween Birthday Party Cake

In actuality, the cake was not for the kids……it’s a cream cheese cake and I didn’t think that most of the kids would want any. So, I had the cake for the parents and then had ice cream for the kids. The parents loved it and it isn’t a very heavy cream cheese cake.

Party Girl with her Cake

What was interesting about this age is that it took my daughter forever to blow the candles out…….maybe it was the 30 pairs of eyes that were looking at her. Yet, my 4 year old just dug right into blowing the candles out.

Photos taken by Amy Hall Photography, Portland, OR.

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Princess Party Fondant Cake

These folks are truly artists with fondant. I have been to another party where they make the cake ans it was equally as beautiful. Just amazing. They are in Portland, OR. Not sure if they will ship the cakes or not. But even for your own idea, this was a beautiful Princess Party Fondant Cake and it also tasted great……which is always a plus……

Resources: Bakery Bar in Portland, OR.

Photo taken by Amy Hall Photography, Portland, OR.

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Bumble Bee Bug Cupcake

This bumble bee cupcake is chocolate with chocolate icing. Then the bee is a soft yellow squirt of icing with small stripes. The wings are slivered almonds.

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