Baking my way through the trials and triumphs of life!

Here’s a quick wrap-up of the boy’s birthday party. In addition to the cake and cupcakes, the boy and I wanted to have some other dessert options for the kids to choose from. We decided to make Angry Bird  brownie pops to tie in with the video-game theme. If you haven’t heard of Angry Birds, it’s a game app that has a huge cult following of kids and adults. When it comes to cake pops vs. brownie pops, brownie pops seem to be the winner at our functions. There are people who absolutely love cake pops, but an equal number of people who don’t like the texture of them. There are also kids who don’t eat cupcakes (which I don’t understand at all), so brownie pops makes a good alternative.

For the angry birds, I fortunately had every color of candy melt on-hand. If you don’t want to buy all of the colors pre-made, you can buy the white candy melts and a package of Wilton candy coloring. Do not use Wilton or Americolor’s regular decorating gels. I’ve gotten away with a drop or two, but too much and the chocolate will seize. We used candy-coated sunflower seeds for the beaks and feathers. The top of the black and red birds were made by dipping a snippet of licorice into the melted candy coating mixture. I didn’t realize until mid-party that the angry birds looked quite happy. These were made the hour before the party (which I don’t recommend). The eyebrows, which they lacked, are needed for that angry expression, but who wants anger at a birthday party anyway, right?

The Pac Man cookies were made for me. I was willing to share them, but the boy didn’t appreciate them as much as the girl who grew up in the 80’s, so I claimed them as my own. One thing you don’t know about me is that I am the Ms. Pac Man, Frogger, and Centipede champion of the 80’s (among my friends, of course ~ no national rankings or titles). I’ve always been a little obsessed with Ms. PacMan. I think it’s the love story between Pac Man and Ms. Pac Man that drew me in. The cookie ghosts were made using a mini tulip cookie cutter. Pac Man and his girlfriend were made by using a small circle cookie cutter and the pointy part of a mini heart cookie cutter to take out a piece for the mouth. The eyes on the ghosts are royal icing eyes that I buy pre-made. They come in a whole variety of sizes, and they’re great to use on pops and sugar cookies.

As if there wasn’t enough junk served at the party, we sent each kid home with a wii-mote sugar cookie favor. I’ve done these before and previously piped all of the details (which takes forever!). This time around I used the edible markers and drew in the details. This was a huge time-saver. I do like the look of the intricate piping better, so I’ll continue to do that for cookie orders.

The boy is a bit obsessed with an app. on his itouch called Cut the Rope. It features a little green candy-lovin’ creature who goes through a series of levels to earn lollipops and other treats. We made the monster out of green fondant and added Twizzlers and lollipops to a clear vase. The kids loved these mini-lollipops, and snacked on the licorice throughout the party.

Finally, there was a pizza-lovin’ creature at the party who hit the jackpot. I have no idea if there was pizza in the box when she discovered it or not. Really, I don’t want to know.  I am told that the Naughty One, like the cupcake-hoarding boy from the party (described a few posts back), enjoyed quite a bit of party food that night. Thankfully, like the cupcake hoarder, she never got sick! The Naughty One, not the boy, is my party-animal!