party eats

I had to devote a whole entry strictly to party food. For the family and friends party we had loads of appetizers, party trays of pizza and a chili buffet which is pretty standard party fare. But for the kid's party we wanted to serve snacks that could be eaten by both parents and toddlers alike. I wanted as much homemade and healthy food as possible for this part of the party but it really proves difficult to accomplish when you work full time. But we were happy with how it all turned out. Here's the spread mid-party:

It's pretty standard at kids parties to find kolbassa, crackers & cheese and fruit & veggie trays. I've bought prepared trays in the past, but made them myself this time around because I'm picky about which fruits and veggies work for toddlers. Along with trays we had:
Cucumber and Cream Cheese blended with Tzatziki Tea Sandwiches
Skipjack Tuna and Cream Cheese Pinwheels (my own rework on this recipe which appeared in the current What's Cooking by Kraft magazine for Holiday 2011)
Pitas with Hummus & Tzatziki
Corn Fritters with Ketchup 
Cinnamon & Sugar Crisps
And for desserts there were 2 different kinds of ice cream sandwiches I made these using Oreo and Chips Ahoy Thinsations. Oreo & Mint Chip Ice Cream and Chocolate Chip & Vanilla.

We created a mini cake for the kid's party. One of my absolute favourite cakes is this Cordon Rose Banana Cake from The Cake Bible. I think it's a cake perfectly suited for children so I made this cake with a chocolate butter cream filling with fondant. We decorated it like Muno with one eye and red Smarties for his bumps.

This year we decided to use menu item cards as part of the spread. We learned from Owen’s birthday last year when a mystery pocket containing shrimp slipped into the mouth of an allergic party goer. To alleviate any more food policing it was simple enough to print off our menu plan. It was helpful for our vegetarian guests. It also was a great visual aid for us as we worked through one item to the next preventing us from forgetting anything.

owen's second birthday cake

Owen's second birthday was a total blast. I'd like to share some party details. To start: Owen's birthday cake. 

The cake theme was Yo Gabba Gabba's Birthday episode. 

 In the episode, Brobee reminisces about his second birthday where he enjoyed a bowl of spaghetti. 

Thus, this was our inspiration for Owen's cake. 

Brobee was 4 layers of vanilla cake with vanilla butter cream filling. 

 The stump in Brobeeland is chocolate cake with chocolate butter cream filling. 

The bowl of spaghetti is fondant through an exturder. The meatballs are Tim Horton's chocolate Timbits. The volume in the bowl is trimmed cake from the Brobee and stump.

Owen wasn't quite sure how to blow out his candles, but he knows how to sing Happy Birthday. And most importantly he knew it was his celebration.

And he loved his cake. In true fashion Owen goes for the biggest piece first.

spiderman cake

Here's the latest cake Nuno and I made. Again I baked and Nuno brought it to life!

This cake is 2 layers of chocolate cake with chocolate butter cream filling and fondant icing. It was created for my sister Katie's boyfriend Mouth's birthday. 

While shopping for Halloween costume items at the dollar store Nuno stumbled up the most perfect plates and napkins to suit the cake.

This is our first cake that wasn't sculpted, which was nice, but still brought on it's own set of new learning experiences. Namely piping. Sure Nuno can draw with any pencil, crayon, charcoal and wacom with ease, but piping, that's a new challenge. 

I love the way it turned out so bright and colourful just like a comic cover. After this experience I think I'm going to have to sit and practice piping because I can tell this skill is one you get good at through monotonous & repetitive attempts.

nosferatu creep cake

So far all of the sculpted cakes Nuno and I have been working on are cute animated characters. I think Nuno was up for more of a challenge when he proposed a Nosferatu cake for our friend Leslie's birthday.

For anyone who isn't familiar, Nosferatu is the first Dracula movie ever made. It's silent and black and white.

Seeing the completed cake you would think we went to a fan expo and picked up a sculpture of Nosfeatu, so luckily we snapped some photos of the cake in progress. This is vanilla cake with butter cream icing. We attempted to bake a swirl of cherry syrup into the layers to appear like blood, but that idea didn't really translate as well as we had hoped. But all in all we are really happy with how this cake turned out.

Lightning McQueen Cake

Nuno's getting pretty serious about cakes these days. As well he should be because he's getting very good and is super talented. A friend of mine requested a last minute cake of Lightning McQueen from Cars for her nephew's birthday. Once Nuno heard about the challenge of putting a cake together under a tight deadline, he was game. I did a Google and Flickr search on Lightning McQueen cakes and, well, this link will give you a pretty good idea of what most people expect from a McQueen cake.

But this was what Nuno whipped up in 48 hours!

As a huge fan of the movie Cars myself, my favourite McQueen is when he gets a new paint job and tires from the Radiator Springs crew and that was the inspiration for this cake.

Nuno painted the eyes and they were full of life.

Details like the head lights, gas cap and tail pipes were all gum paste and hand painted.

The tires were moulded chocolate with black white fondant.

The paint job was of course red fondant but then painted with an edible pearl dust to replicate the glitter paint job.

My favourite moment was when Owen spent Saturday morning breakfast in his chair watching dad put all the details on the cake. We put on Cars and Owen couldn't really get past the first scene, but he recognized McQueen and I'm thinking he must be under the impression that his dad invented Lightning McQueen.

first birthday cake eye candy!

We've had two back to back weekends of first birthday parties. 

We were asked to make a cake for Owen's friend Alejandro's fire truck themed birthday party yesterday. 

My friend requested vanilla cake so I used this recipe. Since making sculpted cakes we've discovered that denser, pound cake-like cakes work best for sculpting and keeping the structural integrity of layered cakes.

4 stacked layers and six cakes went into the fire truck cake.

 Butter cream crumb coat.

Bright fire engine red fondant. Red dye looks great, but tastes like ass.

Again, everything was edible on the cake. All the details sculpted with gum paste and the lights were all gummies. The wheels were moulded chocolate with black fondant on top.

Nuno even worked in flashing red lights underneath two pieces of fruit leather to look like a siren. Worked like a charm!

:::

The other amazing birthday party we attended was an outdoor picnic for our friends Karissa & Kevin's daughter Pepper. 

Here is the adorable cupcake spread all home baked by Karissa herself! The birthday party theme was strawberries so we were all treated to a side of vanilla ice cream with strawberry topping.

Along with the cupcake tower, Pepper had a gigantic pink cupcake all to herself.

These cupcakes were so light and delicious and the frosting was amazing! Owen loved his chocolate cupcake!!

 HAPPY BIRTHDAY FRIENDS!!!

beauty weekend

This weekend Nuno and I got away to Toronto. Owen stayed with Grandma & Grandpa so that we could go to Hot Docs to see the documentary Beauty Day.

This documentary was directed by a friend of ours, Jay Cheel. Beauty Day is about local Niagara legend Ralph Zavadil aka. Cap'n Video, an early 90's cable TV personality who filmed himself attempting extreme stunts in and around his home.

This documentary is hilarious, touching and a total blast to watch. We had a screener copy for the past few months in which time I've probably seen it 10 times. It was perfect for putting in time on those days when Owen was mid-day napping on at-home sick days. Upon repeated viewings of this documentary I found myself tearing up at key scenes which involved the relationship with is ex Nancy Dewar and the discovery of his daughter. Jay captured so many genuine moments that this documentary has a way of drawing you right into Ralph's life. I guess this is why I felt so compelled to see it at Hot Docs because this would be the very first time Ralph would be watching it. Not only that, we would get to see the final cut on 35mm, which is very cool as well.

On our way to Toronto our route to get on the highway took us to the Cap'ns neighbourhood. We peeked down the street to find a white stretch limo parked outside ready to whisk the Cap'n onto his movie premier.

While waiting in line to enter the theatre the Cap'n skateboarded up Charles Street with a pink hairy bag of popcorn.

As a filmmaker Jay has a perfectly executed artistic direction, story pacing and delivery. I really hope this documentary gets maximum exposure because there is no doubt in my mind that it will be successful.

Saturday was my sister Katie's birthday party. She decided to have it at the Duke for karaoke. The karaoke host is legendary 60's wrestler Sweet Daddy Siki. It was awesome and tons of fun especially when the birthday girl got up and belted out 'My Ding a Ling'.

And what's a birthday without one of Nuno's cakes these days? Katie is a huge fan of Gumby so this cake was perfectly suited.

Over the past 2 days we've seen so many friends and family, some we go months without keeping in touch with! It was incredible to just hang out at places like the Duke, Hot Docs, Burger Bar & Tequila Lounge and be surrounded by so many people we love. Seems like everyone is in Toronto now while we live in Niagara. Hopefully we will have a few more Toronto weekends this summer.

Thomas the Tank Engine birthday cake

Nuno really wanted to make a special birthday cake for our nephew Ronan's 4th birthday party. Ronan and his parents decided the theme was going to be Thomas the Tank Engine.  

To start Nuno did research on Thomas and devised a blueprint as to how he'd make this cake work out. He first had an acrylic skeleton built and a platform for the cake to stand on. Then Thomas' shape was 8 chocolate cakes I baked.

This is when the cake really started coming together.

Here is Nuno's work space but only really shows half of all the tools he used.

The final assembly happened at the party. 

Here are some detail shots of the finished cake.

Thomas' face is moulded Rice Krispie Treats with the top layer gum paste. Totally edible. Actually it was important that all the details could be edible including the chimney, lights, bumpers and details are candy and moulded gum paste. 

Ronan is a huge fan of Thomas and has even visited a real Thomas the Tank Engine, so the details on this cake were really important. 

Like these two gold whistles. Ronan noticed them and felt like it was really Thomas.

Thomas has coal in his tender. They sell chocolate rocks at Bulk Barn that worked perfectly here. 

Ronan LOVED his cake. It really was super cute to see his reaction to it. We have some film footage of it and I think I'll try and upload it.

Oh man, the first cut is the deepest. I don't know how Nuno could make this and then slice it, but it didn't seem to pain him. If it's any consolation it tasted great! The cake is a vegan chocolate cake with white frosting and fondant. It tasted like Jos Louis which is perfect for a child's birthday party.