This recipe is for basic buttercream frosting. It's really simple and will hold up for basic decorating. It's not stiff enough for something like roses, but will work fine for most kids birthday party cakes. (I made the sweet peas and pea pod in this photo with gum paste.) You can make it a little healthier by substituting the shortening with butter, but it won't hold up as well for decorating.
Buttercream Frosting:
1/2 C. (1 stick) real butter, slightly softened 1/2 C. vegetable shortening 4 C. sifted powdered sugar 2 Tbsp. milk 1 tsp. vanilla Whip all in a mixer until you have a delicious and fluffy frosting. (Start slowly or your powdered sugar will go everywhere.) You can color with icing colors or use as a white frosting.
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This picture is from a few years ago before I knew anything about photographing for a blog. I used a Nordic Ware pan that I purchased at Meijer for the train cake.
Here are my notes: I made a large chocolate sheet cake and a vanilla train cake. I used dowel rods to help secure the train cake to the chocolate cake. The cake is frosted with chocolate buttercream frosting and vanilla buttercream frosting. My three year old insisted that the train had to have a face like Thomas so I made a face out of gum paste and brushed it with silver dust. He also wanted smoke coming from the smokestack so I cut up a large Campfire marshmallow and sprayed it lightly with black coloring spray.
I made this cake several years ago for my son's second birthday. It was a lot of fun to make.
I carved the dog shape out of cake that I had baked in a dutch oven. I frosted it in buttercream frosting using an icing tip that I could drag to make it look like hair. I made the eyes and nose out of gum paste. I covered the icecream cone hat with gum paste to resemble a party hat.
Looks like I made a tail and a bump for the head out of gum paste too. (I have a very pregnant belly in this picture.) That little guy is almost 4 already.
My son like most two year olds loves to play with balls so we threw him a ball birthday party for his second birthday. We kept it really simple by keeping the guest list small. We didn't do a pinata or any party favors.
I did find this blow-up ball pit with multi-colored balls in a second hand children's store and my 6 year old said we had to buy it for the party. It was a hit. Unfortunately, the ball pit did not survive the wild party boys (it sprung a leak), but the balls have provided hours of fun on their own.
I found these adorable cupcake liners at Meijer and thought they were perfect for a ball themed party.
I made these vanilla cupcakes with chocolate buttercream and frosted some of them with vanilla bean icing.
I swirled some of them with chocolate and vanilla icing. I loved both icing recipes and would make them again. I found the cupcake recipe good, but a bit challenging.
I used these large ball sprinkles (also from Meijer) to coordinate with the party theme.
This boy is serious about his icing.
I tried to keep the menu both manageable and delicious.
The Party Menu: Guacamole and Homemade Tortilla Chips Pulled Pork and Cole Slaw Hot dogs Black Bean and Corn Salad Fresh Berries Cheese Balls (our only ball themed food) Cupcakes and Homemade Ice Cream Pop, Water, Juice
I recently made a Spiderman Birthday Cake for my oldest son. This was a really fun cake to make. I used a recipe for fluffy yellow cake from Annie's Eats. It worked well for layering large tiers and was a fairly simple recipe. I made three batches of this cake batter to fill two 12" layers and two 8" layers. I used two wooden dowel rods in the center of the cakes to help hold the layers together since they were large.
I frosted the cake with an easy buttercream icing and used paste food colors. I used almost a whole jar of Christmas red to achieve the bright red. I piped the black webbing with an icing bag using more buttercream icing. This icing was great for spreading on the cake, but I would use an icing with shortening next time for piping because the icing was a little drippy and hard to use.
My husband made the silhouette of New York City by rolling out gum paste which he had colored grey and cutting out an outline of the city.
He even made the Brooklyn Bridge and I used a fine tip to pipe the cables.
Check out the dirigible. Such a creative husband!
We just celebrated our little guy's first birthday. I made him a large sheet cake with a #1 cake on top. The cake is a delicious homemade chocolate cake with chocolate icing. I made a simple buttercream to frost the #1 and colored some of it blue to pipe the border and letters. I then placed large confetti candy sprinkles on the sides of the chocolate layer and on the blue border.
I have been trying to incorporate more healthy fats into my cooking so I decided to make my buttercream frosting with just real butter and no shortening for my son's first birthday. It worked well for frosting and was delicious. I didn't do anything really elaborate with the decorating so this worked. If you need a stiffer icing, I would suggest using royal icing.
Simple Buttercream Frosting:
1 C. (2 sticks) real butter, slightly softened 4 C. sifted powdered sugar 2 Tbsp. milk 1 tsp. vanilla Whip all in a mixer until you have a delicious and fluffy frosting. (Start slowly or your powdered sugar will go everywhere.) You can color with icing colors or use as a white frosting.
My sister and brother-in-law recently hosted a Yo Gabba Gabba party for my niece's birthday. They made their own shirts and favor bags. My sister even made the cake. She ordered hand made cake decorations from Etsy. The pictures are so cute, I had to share.
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Welcome to Home Ec @ HomeHi, I'm Faith, a former Family and Consumer Science teacher turned food blogger. I love God, my family, and food. You can usually find me in the kitchen preparing family friendly, homemade recipes and taking lots of pictures. This website uses marketing and tracking technologies. Opting out of this will opt you out of all cookies, except for those needed to run the website. Note that some products may not work as well without tracking cookies. Opt Out of CookiesFan Favorites
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