Cup-cake making party - help!!

[gramercy]

Dd has ordered a cake-making party for her 7th birthday. Although this seems to let off my purse lightly compared with all her friends' Build a Bear parties, I am starting to feel rising levels of stress!

Has anyone ever hosted one of these? Any advice? Any books to recommend? Can I order stuff online? Heeelllppp.....

Hi there

I can recommend 'the Hummingbird Cafe' cookbook which has a big range of easy cupcakes & icing, particularly if you have a mixer.

Would recommend lots of pretty disposable cases and a load of choc chips / coloured sugar / sood colouring, etc so they can spend ages decorating them.

If you want to be really exotic then you can pick cup cake stands on Ebay that'll display their work nicely & (with candles) would save you having to make an additional cake for the singing / candle blowing.

Would do a trial run if you're panicking & you'll find it's not actually that scarey & quite cheap really.

Good luck

Thanks! Cake stands good idea.

I would invest in lots of plastic bowls and weigh out everything in advance and 'line them all up' so it makes it easier. My guess is that they would want to do more decorating than actual baking so after they make and things get put in the oven you caould have some already made that they could then start icing .

Top tip! I know that the actual mixing and so on is a bit problematic; I don't want 7-year-olds wielding electric hand mixers!

the disposable icing bags from lakeland limited are great, i made up lots of coloured icing in advance and clipped ends with clippits friom lakeland as well, my friend recommended clingfilming the table first but i had a catering roll of disposable tablecloth as did my
ine as decorating cupcakes as part of art and crafts party. You could search for cheap aprons and they could decorate them with fabric pens and then you dont need a going home pressie, my friend said that was really popular at her party, she made pizzas as well so effectively the kids made their own lunch and going home present!

the disposable icing bags from lakeland limited are great, i made up lots of coloured icing in advance and clipped ends with clippits friom lakeland as well, my friend recommended clingfilming the table first but i had a catering roll of disposable tablecloth as did my
ine as decorating cupcakes as part of art and crafts party. You could search for cheap aprons and they could decorate them with fabric pens and then you dont need a going home pressie, my friend said that was really popular at her party, she made pizzas as well so effectively the kids made their own lunch and going home present!

If you have any aprons for them, it'll be much less of a mess! Try searching for "frilly PVC aprons" or something similar, so that you can wipe them up afterwards - and might make a good gift as well! There's probably a few little kitchen accessories you could get if you look around - would make for a nice theme, I guess. As for the cupcakes, I'd say make a batch beforehand and put them away somewhere so that they can all do some decorating whilst they wait for their own to bake.

Definitely measure the ingredients out beforehand as that could be messy, especially with flour. A little candle for each cupcake would be quite nice and then if you put them all together at the end, they double as a birthday cake.

i would go for an easy life and buy plain cup/fairy cakes...

you can then concentrate on decorating them...use the pretty sprinkles, sweets, grated chocolate, nutella, white icing, icing pens etc

get in some plain biscuits and decorate those as faces.

get some plain white cake boxes and let the kids decorate those with their name and piccies/stickers etc and a small individual pack of felt pens....then send the cakes home in their own boxes....no need for party bags either then!!!

I've done as chimchar suggested in the past and used pre-bought cakes and just got the girls to decorate. We had bowls of icing in different colours, sprinkles from the home baking aisle in the supermarket, packets of sweets eg choc buttons and dolly mixtures (cheaper than sprinkles!). We got everyone to put their cakes on a paper plate which they wrote their name on then judged the best cake. One wee girl had already eaten hers though . It was good fun - hope you and your DD enjoy it. We were still finding silver balls and hundreds and throusands for months though!

Hello, I run childrens cupcake parties and they are so much fun. I bake 6 vanilla cupcakes per child and then do different coloured buttercream which is always and big hit in disposable icing bags. Then lay out all the decorations for them, edible glitter, dragees are always a huge hit and watch them create the most amazing cupcakes. I also have the icing which can be dribbled but the bags are without a doubt the best liked. Have a look on Ebay for the edible glitter, if you put a bit on the plate instead of putting the whole container out it can go quite a long way. Have fun! let me know if you need any more info. Oh and also a good thing to have is some boxes which they can decorate to put the cakes in....