The little munchkins turn 1

I have had a very busy week followed by a very lazy one and i kept putting off this blog post to the next day which as expected, didn't arrive until i had to push myself. Literally! The twins had their birthday last weekend and i spent the whole week preparing. It has been pretty stressful trying to put together an event you truly wish to be perfect with two wailing kids who refuse to follow their routines just when you need them to. I would cook during the day and craft decorations during the night when they would sleep. For some deranged reason, i had this notion of doing every single thing by myself. Whether i had a point to prove or not, i'm not sure, but eventually everything kind of settled and the event was pretty much a success. Phew!

The theme was Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse. Here are a few pictures from the decor;

By the time i took this picture, the helium was evaporating from the balloons and they dropped down. It looked better when i put them up. The red hats with mickey ears were for the boys and the black hats with bows were for the girls. Same pattern followed for the goody bags. I was supposed to make a centre piece of mickey's head but i couldn't find a Styrofoam ball anywhere in the market so i had to drop the idea. Instead i placed the photo props in the middle since the background was supposed to serve as a photo booth as well. 

I have pinned dozens of crepe paper squares on this sign from my own bare hands, so i felt pretty proud of this one!

The number 1 pinata, photographed later. 

Some buntings, the first ones are printed, the second ones are simply cutouts from colored paper.

Photo timeline for A and Z. One side for Z and the other for A. And if you could see the garlands with mickey head silhouette hanging from the ceiling.  

By the way i have learnt the art of making tissue paper pom poms. It is pretty simple. I think i will share it on my blog someday. No need to buy the ones that are available in the market, they cost about 250 Rs. each. Whereas you can make one at home only with a crepe paper that costs Rs. 25. Budget friendly much? And the best part is you can make them in any desired color. Usually here in Pakistan the ones that we get from the market come in very few colors. 

The food was mostly served in individual serving. Bite sized items look great on the table but i have realized that they are much more time consuming to make.  I tried making most of it in advance and looked for recipes that could be frozen or half cooked because i wanted to focus on the birthday cake the last day. Little did i know all that will be no good and the cake will be pretty much of a disaster. I will share my cake story in a bit, first some pictures of the food items. 

Sugar cookies

This was my first attempt at sugar cookies. I didn't even have a mickey shaped cookie cutter. So i made one following a video on youtube. I used the same method to make a smaller one for the fondant cutouts on the cake. The cookies turned out great. Decorating them was a challenging part. I made the royal icing using meringue powder which turned out to be just the right consistency but it didn't dry hard like it is supposed to because the whether was too humid. I had to wait overnight for each color to dry. And even then the white icing was difficult to work with while making buttons. 

I took the recipe for sugar cookies and royal icing from glorioustreats. This is my favorite website for cookie decorating ideas. 

Chocolate Cupcakes

The recipe for these cupcakes comes from joyofbaking dot com. I have tried these a dozen times and they are your recipe for ultimate chocolate indulgence. to save time i had bought Betty Crocker's chocolate fudge frosting for these, but the one mentioned in the recipe also works great.  

Mini Burgers

This is my own recipe for the chicken patties and i will share it shortly in another post. 

Other savory item included Fish with Tartar Sauce, Chicken Tenders, Mini Pizzas and Pasta in Alfredo Sauce. All of which i was unable to photograph but i will share their recipes with new photos soon. 

Shortbread Tarts

These tarts are my favorite. They are easy to make, taste great and the best part is that you can freeze them. I made them a week ahead and put them in the freezer. I took them out one night before and they were as butter crisp and fresh as on the day they were baked. Just make sure to put them in a good wrapping so they don't smell of other food items in the freezer. I filled them with white chocolate (molten chocolate chips) as i was already using cream cheese frosting for my cake. Besides it was easy just to melt chocolate chips and fill the tarts. Here's a link to the recipe. 

Cake trufles

These were supposed to be cake pops. But i didn't have cake pop sticks and they just kept sliding off the skewers so i simply put them in a pastry liner and topped with some sprinkles. Which also brings me to my cake story. 

I chose to make a two tier cake, the bottom layer being a Red Velvet Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting and the top tier was supposed to be a plain vanilla cake with buttercream. I dedicated one whole day to baking the cakes so i don't mess it up. I made two 9" red velvet cakes and one 6" vanilla cake following the recipes mentioned in the hyperlinks. The cakes turned out beautiful. I was actually feeling proud of myself until i had started to frost them!

The frosting just wont set. I had backup jars of store bought frosting but even that kept running. The weather was too hot. I had planned on frosting the cakes with colored icing rather than covering them completely with fondant but the icing simply refused to cooperate. Thankfully i had some left over fondant from my decorations so i thought lets cover it up. Bad idea! The fondant was getting hard to handle as well. Add more sugar, it stiffens, add shortening or water, it melts. I kept rolling and kneading and adding for a good one hour, finally getting it to cover the cake and wham, it just rip when it hit the icing. At that point i was too exhausted to think of more ideas so i let it rest in the refrigerator overnight and try again in the morning, The fondant was set in the morning but it wasn't really what you call a neat wrapping. I took out the cake to stick the decorations to it but then it started to melt again. The top tier actually started to slip off the bottom one. That is when i decided to stop. As much as i wanted the cake to be perfect, it just proved the fact that we can't get everything done on our own and at times it is okay to ask for professional help. I have worked with fondant before, but that was usually in spring or winters, i didn't think a humid weather would be an icing killer. I read a lot about this online later and now i am determined to learn how to tackle this issue in the future. For now, here is a picture of the cake. 

It is only decorated from one side because honestly i had given up. It did taste great though! My youngest sister practically finished it all in a couple of days. What a sugar rush i'm sure!

Anyway, all is well that ends well. Most of my husband's relatives don't have a sweet tooth and they don't really eat cake(yes that is true, such good people exist in this world unlike you and me!) so nobody was really concerned how it looked. The savory stuff was however gone in minutes and my sisters helped finish the rest! The kids were cranky but they loved it later when we opened the presents. I was tired and sleep deprived, but happy because i had finally pulled it off and everything was ready on time. At the end of the day, all that matters is the effort which you put in, especially for your kids who mean the world to you. 

We are having the next birthday at McDonalds though! Just Kidding! I would love to pamper my kids with theme parties of their choice every year. 

Disclaimer:

A few of the decorations (cupcake toppers, buntings and food labels) have been printed from HomeKeeters.com. The rest of the toppers and everything else has been hand crafted by me.