Ava's 3rd Birthday Party - FROZEN

As always, I'm behind in posting, but I wanted to document Ava's 3rd Birthday. She requested a "Frozen" birthday party, and I happily obliged. There were so many cute ideas on Pinterest, and with her birthday being in December there was no shortage of snowflake decor! Hobby Lobby had a great sale on snowflake ornaments, and I went a little overboard but justified that I will be able to use them every year to decorate the house or the Christmas tree.

Ava asked for a chocolate cake, so I just made a Duncan Heinz boxed cake, two boxes to be exact.  I made four 9-inch layers - three for the cake and the 4th layer for the cake pops.

The cake was frosted with my standard go-to Easy Vanilla Buttercream.  I used Wilton gel food coloring to tint it. This is my favorite cake I've ever made!

For the "ice" candy, I use this recipe.  Note- I used a considerable amount of non-stick Canola cooking spray, and it affected the color of my candy. There was brownish greasy areas that pooled in certain areas. I would recommend using it sparingly or using a paper towel to wipe the pan after spraying to ensure the pan is greased evenly. Also, my candy ended up being a greenish-blue because I didn't add quite enough food coloring. I would have preferred it to be more blue, so I recommend adding more color if you think yours has a greenish look. The untinted candy is sort of yellow, so adding a small amount of blue makes it green, but if you add more I'm sure it would look more blue.

These are the Soft Frosted Sugar Cookies:

For the cake pops, I just smushed up a single 9-inch layer of bake boxed cake and formed into balls. I then dipped a stick into some melted white chocolate (I used "Pure White Vanilla Flavored Candy Wafers" from Hobby Lobby which I believe is for chocolate fountains, and it was the smoothest white chocolate I've worked with yet- loved it!), stuck the stick into the ball, then carefully coated the cake ball with chocolate by rolling it in the warm melted white chocolate.  I then set them, stick straight up in the air, on a piece of waxed paper, and immediately sprinkled with colored sugar. If you wait more than a minute or so, the chocolate will set-up and the sugar will not stick.  I have never made cake pops that stand up on their sticks yet - that makes me nervous!

These snowflakes were just royal icing piped into snowflake shapes on a piece of waxed paper. Let sit overnight to dry and carefully peel them off of the waxed paper!

It's hard to believe my first baby is now 3!  She loved her party, but now I fear I've set the bar too high.  It's only May, and she's already asking for a Cinderella party this December.  Better get to work! :-)