In order to organise a Great Children’s Birthday Party you need to plan everything well in advance and this includes making the home made cake!  A cake made by you especially for your Son or Daughter will really make them happy, there is just something extra special when you go to the effort of making it for them.

Littlest Pet Shop Birthday cake by cakejournal, on Flickr

Don’t panic if you are not a world class baker or if you failed at your last cake decorating venture.  I am going to share with you how to decorate a birthday cake that will make your kids say WOW!

Think of your child’s favourite super hero, cartoon or story book character.  Maybe it’s an action figure or a doll, maybe it’s one of those strange things from the Night Garden (cbeebies), just hold onto that image in your mind and get ready to transform it into icing!

To make the cake you will need, you will need decorating tips, an icing bag, a ‘non-toxic’ drawing implement (a non-toxic child’s coloured pencil is fine) and a piece of rice paper.

Tip: You may want to buy several pieces of rice paper so you can practice a few times before your Children’s Birthday Party – it may also be a good idea to practice on something really simple like a clown’s face.

You can normally find rice paper in the cake decorating section of your super market or in a specialty cake decorating store – you can buy it online, if you have enough lead time to wait for the delivery.

Let’s get started:

1. Select a cake mix your child will like (chocolate, banana, etc).  Go back to that image you are holding in your mind of your child’s favourite character and find a picture which will fit onto the top of your cake.  Select the image from a magazine, an online photo printed on your printer, or other source.
2. As it’s your child’s birthday party, using a picture of them is also a great idea!
3. Do all the necessary baking and then let the cake cool while you start to have fun and focus on your drawing.
4. Now place the piece of rice paper over the picture you wish to trace.  Trace the edges and all of the critical dividing lines you’ll need (e.g. the edge of a coat tail or the laces on a shoe) to give you a guide.
5. After you have traced the shape, cut it out carefully, and set it aside with the original picture so you can use that for reference when you start icing.
6. Ice the cake with any solid colour you wish.
7. Now put the rice paper on top of the cake, fill an icing bag and use a small tip to outline the shape of the picture.  Use dark icing for the outline.
8. Once the outline is finished, fill in the detail inside the pattern.  Start with the tiniest details first (like shoelaces and buttons) in dark colours, using the small writing size tip.
9. Complete the design by using lighter colours to fill in the colour of your picture, ie: a clown’s hair or the action figures costume, using a star or other shaped tip and placing lots of dots of icing in the coloured area until you have filled out that part of the design.
10. When you have finished the picture, change your tip back to the first one you used for outlining the picture at the beginning and then go over the whole outline again, go over the lines you originally created to make sure they are clearly defined.

As for the rice paper, it will disintegrate into a rice-based, edible substance that is invisible on the cake and everyone will wonder how you became such a talented artist overnight!

You can decorate the sides of the cake with an appropriate tip and place small dots of icing or other shapes randomly around the sides.  If your children’s birthday party has a theme you could choose items that match the theme to go around the cake.

It is now time to stand back, get the camera and take a photograph of your masterpiece; after all it won’t last long at your children’s birthday party once they blow the candles out!

Have fun,

Wayne