Luau time!

Hi Everyone, I am Marianne! I am really excited to share with you all today a party I planned for my cousin last month. (And it involves some food too!)

A while ago My aunt asked me if I would be in charge of planning my cousin Cammi's 7th birthday party. I agreed to and I'm glad I did! I'm going to take you step by step into Cammi's party in case you want to throw a party like this too or just see some cute ideas. Cammi wanted Bright colors, so I thought of a Luau theme! I worked great.

1. Invitations. I started by looking for invitations on Etsy and I found Pink Pickle studio's etsy shop. I loved their cute Luau invites so we ordered those. You can see them HERE. We just printed them out at cosco and then hand delivered them or emailed them.

2. The set up. We had the party in Cammi's backyard. We set up 2 tables and lots of chairs for where the kids would eat. We got the cute table clothes at Party city.


3. Food! The party was at 1:30 so we made it simple and just did snacks and cupcakes. The kids loved the food! We had: Tropical juice pouches, Rainbow goldfish, Cheesy sun chips (Cammi's request), A fruit rainbow, and cupcakes!



My mom made this fruit rainbow out of different fruit and marshmallows... Don't you just want to eat it?!



4. The cupcakes! I am SOO happy with how they turned out! I found the idea at Family fun's site. They took a long time to make but were really yummy.




Here is the recipe in case you want to try making these cute fish! I got the recipe from Family fun and was very impressed with it.

You will need:

• 24 cupcakes (I did half chocolate & half vanilla)
  
• vanilla frosting (I just used a butter cream recipe I love)
  
• food coloring (yellow, orange, blue, green)

• M&M's
• candy fruit slices
  

Directions:

1. Spoon 1/3 cup of the frosting into a ziplock bag ( I used a piping bag) and set it aside.

2. In a bowl, tint 1/2 cup of the frosting with yellow food coloring. Evenly divide the remaining frosting among three more bowls and tint one portion orange, one blue, and one green.
   

3. Frost the first group of colored cupcake fish, then press four rows of identically colored M&M scales into each as shown ,you'll need two 1-pound bags of M&M's altogether. ( I just bought one of the huge bags of M&Ms) Add 2 red M&M lips.

4. Snip a corner from the frosting bag, then pipe a frosting eye onto each fish and press a brown M&M on top. Repeat with the remaining cupcakes and frosting, then assemble them into a fish shape.

5. Attach a candy fruit slice onto five or six of the cupcakes as shown.

I had this idea then to make Cammi a Rainbow fish! She was the only one who had it and it was a special birthday treat for her.

5. The activities. We split them up into 4 different groups and the rotated to each different activity

Activity #1.. Limbo! Sorry no pictures...

Activity #2 Digging for treasure!

We bought a kiddie pool at Walmart, bought sand at home depot and filled it with fun prizes from the 99 cents store! The kids loved this activity and thought it was so much fun!



Activity #3 Donuts on a string! It was very fun for everyone.
Activity # 4 Games with Hula hoops and balls!
I was in charge of this station. All I did was come up with a few quick games with the balls and hula hoops, but everyone had fun. They also blew bubbles and danced to Hawaiian music!



6. Pinata time!

Here is the cute fish pinata we bought at party city. We filled it with candy and let the kids hit away!


7. The party buckets
We found sand buckets that were a great price and filled them with some fun stuff. Like their own canteen/water bottles, rubber duckies, a Hawaiian kit to make a bracelet, bubbles, a noise maker, candy from pinata and the prizes from sand digging. They also got a Lei at the beginning of the party from the birthday girl.


The Birthday girl was very happy and I hope she had a great birthday! ( I just had to take a picture with her and the amazing clouds in the background!)

Red Velvet Cupcakes & A San Diego Wedding...

Maren's daughter, Laurin recently was married to the ever-so-handsome Josh! The Red Velvet Cupcakes were a huge hit at the reception. I thought it would be fun to share some pictures and a fabulous recipe!

RED VELVET CUPCAKES

Ingredients

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/2 cups sugar

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon cocoa powder

1 1/2 cups vegetable oil

1 cup buttermilk, room temperature

2 large eggs, room temperature

2 tablespoons red food coloring

1 teaspoon white distilled vinegar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

For the Cream Cheese Frosting:

1 pound cream cheese, softened

2 sticks butter, softened

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

4 cups sifted confectioners' sugar

Chopped pecans and fresh raspberries or strawberries, for garnish

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line 2 (12-cup) muffin pans with cupcake papers.

In a medium mixing bowl, sift together the flour, sugar, baking soda, salt, and cocoa powder. In a large bowl gently beat together the oil, buttermilk, eggs, food coloring, vinegar, and vanilla with a handheld electric mixer. Add the sifted dry ingredients to the wet and mix until smooth and thoroughly combined.

Divide the batter evenly among the cupcake tins about 2/3 filled. Bake in oven for about 20 to 22 minutes, turning the pans once, half way through. Test the cupcakes with a toothpick for doneness. Remove from oven and cool completely before frosting.

For the Cream Cheese Frosting:

In a large mixing bowl, beat the cream cheese, butter and vanilla together until smooth. Add the sugar and on low speed, beat until incorporated. Increase the speed to high and mix until very light and fluffy.

Garnish with chopped pecans and a fresh raspberry or strawberry.

Cook's Note: Frost the cupcakes with a butter knife or pipe it on with a big star tip.

Candy Corn Cupcakes

Candy Corn Cupcakes

1 18.25-oz. white cake mix

1 c. sour cream

1/2 c. vegetable oil

3 large eggs

1 tsp. almond extract

Yellow and orange food coloring

A double batch of Perfect Cupcake Frosting and Filling (see below)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line 2 24-cup muffin tins with white paper liners (although you may not make it to 24 cupcakes). 

Combine all ingredients except for food coloring in a large bowl and beat on low speed for 1 minute. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and then beat on medium for 2 additional minutes.

Divide batter equally into two bowls; you should have about 2 1/4-2 1/2 cups of batter in each bowl.Mix about 1/2 heaping tsp. of yellow coloring into one bowl of batter and 1/2 heaping tsp. of orange coloring into the other bowl.

Divide the yellow batter evenly among the muffin tins. I used a standard cookie scoop, which measures about 1 Tbsp. Holding the edges of each pan firmly, bang the pan a few times on the counter to level out the batter. Repeat the process with the orange batter. 

Bake for 20-22 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of a cupcake comes out clean. Remove from oven and allow to cool for about 5 minutes in the pan and then allow to cool completely on a cooling rack.When ready, frost the cupcakes and garnish with a candy corn. When you cut them open, they look like this:

Perfect Cupcake Frosting and Filling

6 T Flour
1 C milk (whole milk is best, but I used non-fat or 2% when it's all I have and it's actually fine)
1 C real butter
1 C granulated sugar
2 t vanilla extract, or other flavor if you wish.

Whisk together the flour and the milk. Heat in a small sauce pan on medium heat.
Whisk continuously until it starts to thicken. Let it cook, while stirring, until you can start to see the bottom of the pan. The INSTANT you see the bottom of the pan remove from heat and start straining over a bowl.  I used a rubber spatula to push the liquid through.  This is a fast thing so go quickly.

You should end up with a nice, smooth mixture. It's almost like

 pudding before it's set.

Put this mixture in the fridge and let it cool completely, it's fine if it stays in there long enough to get chilly, you just don't want it warm at all. When it is chilled, you can move on to the following step.

It an electric stand mixer, beat the butter and the sugar for a minute or two until well combined and fluffy. You'll want to use the whisk attachment on a stand mixer, not the flat paddle. Then while beating, add in the thickened milk mixture and the vanilla. Beat to combine and then scrape down the sides. Don't be scared. It's going to look like a goopy mess. 
 Beat on med-high for 7-8 minutes. I know it is a long time but I was promised it would turn out and it did!

It should turn out light, silky and oh so good!  If it isn't light and silky, try beating it a little bit longer.

For more details on any of the above go to www.ourbestbites.com and look up candy corn cupcakes.  You will love EVERYTHING on their site!

Baseball Cupcakes

One of the Mom's on our T-ball team brought these cupcakes for snack after the game. I thought that was the perfect treat for these little guys

These cupcakes were frosted and then the baker piped on the red icing. Red skinny licorish would work when cut up.


Just bake a regular cake mix (follow directions on the package), and frost away!

Rainbow Cupcakes

A fun family favorite to do with your children...

"Rainbow Cake" of Cakes by Michaelyn
*If you prefer a smaller cake/cupcake batch (24), use only one cake mix and 1/2 the extract and vanilla

You'll need:
• Two Betty Crocker white cake mixes
• Basic box ingredients for two cakes - eggs (whites only), oil, water
• 2 tbsp pure almond extract
• 2 tbsp golden/clear vanilla extract
• "Colors" - either ChefMaster Liquid Colors or Wilton Paste Colors. NEVER USE RED.

Preheat Oven to 325 degrees F. Begin by preparing the cake mix per the box directions, adding the almond and vanilla extracts to the batter. Mix for roughly two minutes. When the batter is finished, evenly distribute the mix into five or six clear bowls. Add some "coloring" to each bowl of batter. Start with a small amount, mixing thoroughly until the batter has a bold, but not dark, color. Note: Never use red, as the taste is too bitter. Instead, use pink.

Grease a cake pan thoroughly with a cooking spray or use cupcake liners. Drizzle (spoon for cupcakes) the batter into the greased pan, one color at a time, using half of each colored batter. Repeat with the following batters, drizzling to fill in any holes. The color pattern should be repeated twice. Bake the cake according to the box directions, adding more time if necessary until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool the cake, in the pan, for roughly 30 minutes. Level the top of the cake by slicing away anything protruding from the top of the cake pan. Remove cake from the pan, let cool. Frost with your favorite frosting.