Themed children's parties: all the children of the world

In 1997, we had a party with this theme. I baked the cake in an ovenproof bowl instead of a cake tin to get the curve I was after because, no the world isn't flat (shock horror). I iced it in blue icing. Then I used ready made icing in green and carefully traced on and cut out maps of half the world's land mass. In our case, Africa was foremost of course!

At the time, it was possible to get little flags on toothpicks, and I stuck those into the cake where appropriate

I didn't try to get clever with the rest of the eats, but placed them all around the cake, directly onto the tin foil wrapped table (as is my wont). The space was decorated with flags and pictures from all over the world.

Of course, those two flags had to be there!

This photo shows my sons aged 6 and 4, 'helping' me with the decorating. Our parties were always held in the garage, and the kids didn't come into the house other than to use the loo. Some of the moms took refuge in the house, though - it has to be said!

You could invite the children to dress up if you like, but that might result in stereotypes that some people may find offensive. It depends on how politically correct (and incorrect) your friends are!

Themed children's parties: pirates arrrg!!

In 1996, when my elder son turned 5 and my younger son turned 3, we had a pirate party. I made a treasure chest cake, the food table was designated Treasure Island, and all the kids had to enter the party by walking the plank and shouting "Arrrrg!"

The cake is easy enough to make, just two ordinary sponges, one left square, and one cut into a rhombus shape as shown here.

Then you position the cakes so that one is the body of the chest, the other the lid, ice (preferably not in pink... long story) and trim it to look like a treasure chest and insert 'treasure' in the form of foil wrapped chocolate coins and other such things.

I made palm trees to go around the Treasure Island table, using the cardboard rolls from a fabric store. The rolls on which fabric is sold is lovely and thick. The palm leaves can be made out of card or tissue paper, of whatever you fancy.

You can make it a fancy dress party, if you like. We just opted to give each one a 'scar' on arrival, using one of my lipliners. This is my younger son, aged three, who already had an impressive collection of facial scars of his own by this time (one of which you may be able to make out in the centre of his forehead). The one on the left cheek, I'm sure you don't need me to tell you, is a fake.

Captain Scarface. Arrrrg!!!

We had a treasure hunt as one of the games, with clues scattered all over the garden and a prize at the end. Let your imagination run riot. Go for it. You know you're dying to dress up and shout "Arrrg!!!" and "Me hearties!!!" and all that.

Themed children's parties: mice

Today is the last post drawn from this picture, you'll be pleased to hear. We're looking at the little mice on the left.

Ingredients

Thin, round biscuits such as arrowroot or Marie biscuits

White marshmallows - one per biscuit

Pink marshmallows - two or three should do the trick

Liquorice laces

Red food colouring and a cotton bud (q-tip) to apply it with

A little icing sugar mixed with just enough water to make a paste

Method

Marshmallow on each biscuit

Add a tail

• Using a dab of the icing paste, place one white marshmallow on each biscuit like so.
• Cut the laces into lengths for tails and stick one end of each lace into one end of each marshmallow to serve as a tail. Save some liquorice for later.
• Cut the pink marshmallows into slices and then cut each slice in half.
• Using a dab of icing paste, secure two of these semi-circles onto the white marshmallow to serve as ears. They should be quite close to the opposite end from the tail (obviously).
• Using the cotton bud dipped in the red food colouring, make three red dots on the front of each mouse for eyes and a nose.
• Cut shorter lengths of the laces to serve as whiskers. I cut the whisker lengths in half lengthwise, to create thinner whiskers, but it was quite a faff, so you might prefer not to do that.
• Using some of the paste, stick 'whiskers' onto the face end of the mouse.

Et voila!

Themed children's parties: baskets

Today's post addresses another item from the picture above (which is a scan of an old print, so please pardon the quality). In the centre, at the back you can see a collection of little baskets. This is how I made them.

Cut the tops off

Ingredients

Ice cream cornets - the wafer kind, not the sugar kind.
Some kind of 'laces' - liquorice shoelaces are ideal, but they might not exist where you are. Those dreadfully sour lace things would probably suffice.
Thin, flat round biscuits like Marie biscuits.
Icing sugar.
Green food colouring.
Sweeties to put into your finished baskets.

Method

1. Carefully cut the tops off the ice cream cones, so that you are left with the bit that bulges outward to hold the ice cream.
2. Mix the icing sugar with a very little water to make a paste, and then add a few drops of green food colouring.
3. Spread this paste over one side of each biscuit and (gently) press the cone tops into the paste, wider side up. Now you have the base of your basket sitting on a patch of grass.
4. Cut the 'laces' into lengths of approsimately 12cm.



Small pockets

5. All around the edge of the cone are small pockets. Fill two diametrically opposite pockets with the icing paste and press one end of a lace into the paste on each cone.This gives you your handle, but don't try picking the basket up with it until the icing has dried completely (and even then it's more for effect).
6. Pop a few sweeties (jelly babies, dolly mistures, etc) into each basket, et voila!

Themed children's parties: pig faces

That wasn't brilliant timing, was it? I promised you a Monday series for children's parties right before two sequential bank holiday Mondays. Doh! Well, I'm back on track, now.

Today's eats are useful for nursery rhyme parties ("This little piggy..."), fairy tale parties (Three Little Pigs), farmyard themed parties, Peppa Pig parties, and (of course) parties with no theme at all. You can see the pigs on the right had side of the picture above. Once again scanned from an old photo, so not the greatest quality, I grant you. Fret not, I will share with you how to make each of the things in that photo... except the crisps.

Ingredients:
Flat round biscuits (Marie biscuits or thin rich tea biscuits)
Pink marshmallows (next week, I'll show you what to do with the white ones)
Pink icing (frosting) already made up
Red food colouring and an cotton bud (Q tip) to apply it... clean, of course!
Small round sweets like Smarties, Jelly Tots or some such.

Method:

• Spread each biscuit with pink icing.
• Chop the marshmallows in half (horizontally, as in, to make a shorter cylinder) and press one half into the icing in the centre of the biscuit. This is your piggy's nose. I used scissors for this.
• Using the cotton bud and the red food dye, make two red dots on the top of the marshmallow for nostrils.
• Press two little sweeties into the icing above the nose for eyes. Remember that a pig's eyes are quite low and wide set. If you place them high and close together, you will get a more bear-like face.
• Slice a marshmallow into roughly 4mm circles. Cut each circle in half. These are your ears. Press them into the icing near the top of the head (they should stick out over the edge) to make ears, and short of squeeze them into a longer, narrower shape (pig's don't have round ears).
• And that's it. Honest. You don't need to bother with a mouth.