Hot Air Balloon Cake

Balloon! I loved this cake

This cake I made for Arthur's first birthday (2 and a half years ago) has been quite popular from my previous post. So I thought I'd give it a bit more attention by adding a little 'how to'. It is a very easy cake to make. 

Concentration!

You can make whatever flavoured cake you choose. For this one, I made one of my favourites, an apricot chocolate chip cake. Yum, it's a good one.

Some hot air balloon cakes use a square basket (cake), I found the round one to be just as simple and perhaps a little more appealing. 

To decorate the basket I used a simple chocolate buttercream icing then placed the raspberry milk chocolate coated bullets as shown to get the basket weave effect. You can use liquorice, again it all depends on the flavours you like. 

I dug a small hole out of the top of the cake and filled it with smarties and the candle. 

Under the paper straws, I placed bamboo skewers. I was able to dig these into the cake to keep them in place. 

At the top is a paper lantern. You can get these in every colour under the sun and I think it has a nicer effect (and is reusable and better for the environment) than a rubber balloon. Also, when you light the candle underneath, you're not going to have melty poppy balloon issues!

I think it's my most favourite kids cake that I've made to date. Quite possibly the easiest too.

Have you ever made an easy, yet effective kids cake?!

A 'DIY' Ice Cream Party

My children are growing up. Exciting, sad, scary, but mainly exciting. Also a little exhausting! Now that they are getting older, their vocabularies are expanding, and requests for parties and party paraphernalia are becoming terribly grandiose! I guess I should be thankful that they have such vivid imaginations.

No Melt Ice Creams! (or chocolate crackles in cones)

Handmade Ice Cream Piñata

I think I got off pretty easy with Arthur's request for an Ice Cream Party. Previous party ideas had included a cake with pretty much the entire cast of Thomas the Tank Engine.

I had planned to make it easier on myself and just buy most of the food, decorations, games etc. However it was terribly difficult to find a simple ice cream piñata or ice-cream themed decorations and other such items (at a price that was appropriate to a 3rd birthday celebration!)

And so, paper mache, painting, cutting, baking, glueing and sticking ensued. The Handmade Challenge List, and mummy getting sleep went out the window. Reinforcements were called in, in the form of Nannie and Papa (and don't forget Pinterest!)


The morning of the party was overcast and threatening rain. The inside? or outside? questions began. With about 30 minutes to go before party time, we decided to take a chance on outside. Good decision! The afternoon was just perfect and everyone enjoyed themselves immensely (I believe).

Perfect Spring afternoon

Thanks to Handy Hubby, we had some pretty awesome party games. Pin the ice cream in the donkey's mouth. We also set up a little ice cream stand where the kids were able to serve 'ice creams' using scoops, ping pong balls and recycled industrial cotton reels! (which we procured from a local jean manufacturer). The ice cream stand was a huge hit with all the kids.

Fluorescent ice cream anyone?

No blindfolds! The concept wasn't quite grasped by 1-4 year olds!

Can't forget the party bags

The ice cream sprinkle party bags were made using goodies from The Make Good Co and contained handmade play dough and another cotton reel cone for more ice cream fun.






The cake, oh the cake! This was actually easy and fun! A simple chocolate cake layered together with buttercream icing. An upturned cone (filled with a couple of chocolate crackles) then chocolate ganache poured over the top. Add sprinkles and you have yourself an 'ice cream cake'! Which was served with actual ice cream and your choice of topping!

Arthur attempting to extinguish the candles via head-butt

Felix has been putting in requests for his 5th Birthday (February) for the past three months...

What has been your favourite party to make for?

A Dino-Four Birthday Party

My (big) little man turns 4 today! 4 years have gone by in the blink of an eye. We had a little party for him on the weekend and dinosaurs were requested. Keeping things as simple as possible, this is what we (I) came up with;

Handmade Dino gift wrap and card

Dino-tastic balloons

The very very cute dino card comes from My Little Perfect. The wrapping paper was me taking to the paint, paper and foam stampers while the kids weren't in the house! Fun! The balloons are just your ordinary everyday balloons with some spikes and 'plates' stuck on with sticky tape. Felix helped with the cutting out of the shapes.

Dinosaur Dig Birthday Cake

The cake was so easy! Inspiration taken from a Donna Hay magazine, I baked a yummy flourless chocolate cake, then piped white chocolate onto greaseproof paper sat atop a dinosaur fossil outline I had printed. I then just cut off the top layer of the cake, piled it to the side and whacked the chocolate 'fossil' in the middle. Voila, an archeological dig.

Fossil cupcakes, no awards for artistic merit here!

My mum very kindly made the cupcakes for him to take to Kinder, and again I just piped out white chocolate based on pictures of cupcakes that someone else had made! I so love Pinterest and the sharing of ideas and the making of parent's lives easier!

Party hats with paper spikes, yay Pinterest

No rest though, as we now have another event to organise. We have been told that we're going to have to wait at least 4 more weeks for results from Sophie's blood tests, so she won't be having surgery in this time. We have thus given up waiting to have a big belated 1st birthday, and settled on a much smaller affair. This date we have set for just over two weeks from now (not entirely on purpose) 

So now I am needing to complete items number 2 (heart shaped pinata) and 10 (heart shaped cookies) on My Handmade Challenge List in a hurry!

The main issue I currently have, is where am I going to find very pretty post-it notes for the pinata?! (I guess paper would do too!) Oh and what am I going to put in it, and what cake am I going to make?! Any suggestions are most most welcome!