birthday - I'm Topsy Turvy

Pool Birthday Party – recipes & labels

April 18, 2013 by Ashlee · Leave a Comment

Computer Boy turned 10 in January. When I asked him what he wanted to do for his birthday this year he said “can i just have a regular party, not with a theme?” GAH! He decided to have his party at the local recreation center pool and water playground. My kids love to swim, so with 2 feet of snow on the ground we headed off to the pool.

I kept it simple so it didn’t feel like a huge party theme. I used blue ombre waves in the decorating with beach ball colors for the rest.

The centerpiece was the fondant cake. For the invitations I wrote all the party details on beach balls and delivered them to the school.

My favorite part is coming up with the themed party food. It was around lunch so we started off with “sand”wiches. Get it??? HA!

Then “take a dip” with veggies and Crack Dip (seriously, this dip is AMAZING)

Crack Dip
16 oz sour cream
1 packet Ranch dressing mix
3 oz bacon bits
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
Mix and refridgerate. Serve with veggies or chips.

And I made these beach ball sugar cookies!

This party was different than most, because most of the party food was bought rather than made! But there were so many easy foods out there to pick from! I love the gummie floaty options, inner tubes and noodles…

Goldfish was easy, but these tidepools did NOT turn out. I went to 3 different stores looking for blue jell-o with nothing, so I bught lime and added blue dye. It end up WAY to dar, and you can’t see the gummie fish at the bottom. But that didn’t stop the kids from eating them all!

I kind of wish I had taken the time to cut the corners off one side of these sugar wafer “kickboards” but no one probably would have even noticed. And of COURSE we had to have lifesavers. I wanted white ones, but the birthday boy picked out the fruit flavered bag. He wins!

Since I called the water bottles “pool water” I couldn’t think of anything other than “blue lagoon” to call the blue kool-aid… boo, it’s the one label I’m still not 100% in love with. What would you have named it?

And if anyone is interested here are the Pool Birthday Party Labels in PDF form!

Filed Under: birthday, Parties, printables, Recipes, Sides · Tagged With: cookies

Crepe Bar Birthday Party

March 5, 2013 by Ashlee · 23 Comments

Last month was my mom’s birthday! She and my dad are living here right now, and it’s the first time we’ve been close for her birthday since I was in high school, so it seemed like the perfect time to throw a Surprise party!

Because it’s UTAH, it’s a small world and we all know lots of people here. She has a sampling of friends from like every age and stage of our lives living here so my sister and I invited all the ones we could find.

When we were talking about the food we really quickly decided on a crepe bar! And then we picked our color scheme (Brown, tan, cream, burgundy!) and everything fell into place!!! I’m sharing half the recipes on my blog (scroll down) and the other half are on Chelsea’s Crepe Party Post

My mom’s favorite is my flourless chocolate cake so I made that for her, dressing it up with stabilized whipped cream and black berries.

We made three crepe flavors, plain, cinnamon and chocolate!!! (the chocolate recipe is below, my plain crepe recipe is here on this post and my sisters plain and cinnamon is here on Chelsea’s post)

For the fillings we had a sweet cream cheese, a TART sour cream/cream cheese and a lemon sour cream filling. For toppings we have the buttermilk syrup, my hot fudge and my berry coulis! (The tart filling is below, the sweet and lemon are on Chelsea’s post, the buttermilk is either here on my post, or my Chelsea’s post. The hot fudge and coulis is down below)

I made stabilized whipped cream, so it could be left out during the party and not all melty… and three berry filling options, strawberries, mixed berries and bananas (bleck).

For those who really love it rich we had vanilla ice cream (also it’s good on the cake!) I printed off two full sheets, pressed them around the container and cut it to fit.

Wash it all down with milk… (we had water too of course). I LOVE my sisters cake plate… I need one (anyone know where I can find something similar?)

We had to create some samples to show off for you guys! Chocolate with tart sour cream/cream cheese, strawberries, coulis and whipped cream… Mmmmmm

Cinnamon crepes with sweet cream cheese filling, banana’s and strawberries, hot fudge and whipped cream (I picked around the banana’s- Ewwww)

Plain crepes with lemon filling, mixed berries, buttermilk syrup and more whipped cream! So so SOOO good!

I am SOOO in love with how the whole table turned out! If your interested in the labels click on them to open them up in flickr and download them. I meant to have a PDF of them for you, BUT my out of date 2003 Office word is NOT working for me right now, Grrrrr!

Chocolate Crepes
3 C milk
6 eggs
4 Tbsp butter melted
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 C flour
3/4 C Cocoa powder
3/4 C chocolate (not chips- bars, semi sweet baking, etc…)
4 Tbsp sugar
pinch of salt

Put everything into a blender and mix until smooth. Refrigerate the batter for an hour to let the bubbles settle and the batter with thicken a bit (I refrigerated mine overnight and it got TOO thick, if that happens to you thin it down with more milk or water to get the texture right).

heat a large flat skillet on med high and once it’s hot pout 3-4 Tbsp of batter, QUICKLY tilt the pan in a circle to cover the bottom. I cook it for about 40 seconds on each side. Use a spatula to loosen the edge and flip the crepe. It depends on how hot your pan is. I LIKE it cooking fast, I can get through the batch faster that way…

serve right away, or let the crepes cool, stack, refrigerate and serve the next day!

Sweet Cream Cheese Crepe Filling
16 oz cream cheese, softened
1 1/2 C powdered sugar
2/3 C sour cream
1 tsp vanilla

Beat the cream cheese then add everything else and blend! Keep extra refrigerated and it will last a few more days!

Hot Fudge Sauce
1/2 C cocoa
1 C sugar
1 C karo lite syrup
3 Tbsp butter
1/2 C canned evaporated milk
1/2 tsp salt
Boil over stove about 2 1/2 min add 1 tsp vanilla

Berry Coulis
12 oz Berries, I like a mix of raspberries, blackberries and Strawberries
1/4 tsp orange zest
1/2 C water
1/4 C lemon juice
1/4 C sugar

In a medium-sized sauce pot over medium heat, combine the berries, orange zest, water, sugar, and lemon juice. Bring to a boil and cook for an additional 8 minutes. Remove from the heat and puree with a blender or handheld mixer. Strain into desired small bowl.

Flourless Chocolate Cake
12 oz bitter-sweet chocolate, broken into small pieces
5 whole eggs
1 1/2 C sugar
1 C unsalted butter, softened
1/2 C water

Preheat the oven to 325F. Line the bottom of an 8 inch pan with parchment paper and the sides with Pam. Heat 2/3 of the sugar (1 Cups) in a small pan with the water until the sugar has completely dissolved to a syrup. Place the chocolate and butter in the hot syrup and stir to combine until the chocolate melts and the mixture is smooth. Remove from heat and cool slightly.

Beat the eggs with a third of the sugar (1/2 Cup) with a whisk until the volume quadruples-this will take around least 10 minutes in an electric mixer. Add warm chocolate mixture to the eggs and continue to beat, more gently, until completely combined- about 20 seconds. Pour into the cake tin and place in a water bath (I just use the next cake pan up). Bake in the oven for at least an hour to an hour and a half. It crusts over on the top, but as we’re going to turn it out it will be on the bottom. Let it cool in the tin about 10 mins before turning out. The cake rises quite a bit when it cooks (expanding egg bubbles), but it does shrink a bit as it cools.

Stabilized Whipped Cream
1 tsp unflavored gelatin powder
1/4 C cold water
2 C whipping cream (regular or heavy–I always use heavy cream)
1/4 C confectioner’s sugar
2 tsp vanilla

sprinkle the gelatin over the cold water and let it bloom for 5 mins. While that’s resting add the sugar and vanilla to the whipping cream (feel free to do more or less to your tastes). Once the gelatin has bloomed microwave it until it’s dissolved. Then, while whipping the cream, slowly add the gelatin to the cream. Beat in a mixer with a whisk until soft or stiff peaks form (your preference) and keep refrigerated!

Filed Under: birthday, breakfast, Parties, printables, Recipes, treats · Tagged With: blender, bosch, ice cream, whisk

Baby Boy Cake Batter Rainbow Sprinkle Birthday Party

October 12, 2012 by Ashlee · 15 Comments

First birthday’s are so FUN! A mix of celebration and yet sadness too. Oh how much I love the first year. There is something so special about this first year of life. All the growth and changes, all the the pleasure of bringing a new life into our family. Totally something to celebrate. And yet it goes so fast, too fast for me. My sweet baby is a walking, “talking”, dancing, TODDLER.

It’s definitely a year worth celebrating and celebrating big. And we did! I think Baby Boy loved the attention, a week of celebrating, starting with the cake smash and ending with two parties in a row! Thankfully he held off getting sick until after his birthday week! In the end I can’t believe my baby boy is 1!

Baby Boy’s birthday week was SO much fun! It was a fun party to plan, prepare, and THROW! I actually went through a few themes before setting on Cake Batter and Sprinkles. I’ll save those other themes for another party in the future! Once I settled on Rainbow Sprinkles and started planning the food I quickly added Cake batter to the theme and it fell perfectly into place!

In fact there are about half a dozen recipes I planned on making and DIDN’T get to! I found cake batter recipes for cream cheese frosting, sugar cookies, blondies, a BAKED cheesecake, milkshakes, even pancakes (although I never considered adding pancakes to the party)!

A fun addition to the party was the pictures of the cake smash (from the week before- thank you again to my AMAZINGLY talented sister- Chelsea Peterson Photography) in the window frame. Seriously, he rocked his photoshoot! It was ideally going to hang up behind the cake the whole time, but it ended up too heavy so we just sat it down on the table (better then smashing the cake, right?).

I always OVER plan for my parties. Not everything gets done (like EVER), but once the party starts you let it all go and have fun! I think that’s an important part of Event planning. Enjoying the event itself. I enjoy every part of party planning. The planning, the work and especially the event itself. Whats the point of all the work if your going to be miserable, anxious and stressed the entire event??

One of those things I didn’t get too was a few of the decorations, but it looked great anyway! I did end up updating my 30 image picture frame with pictures from his first year of life at the family party the next day, and I’m enjoying looking at it in my office now! Everyone had a ball and the things that didn’t get done weren’t missed at all! In fact no one will ever know but me.

I had a few activities/crafts ready to go, but the weather was so beautiful, the kids were all getting along so well, we ended up just chatting, eating and relaxing! It was a great party, I can’t imagine it going any better! I love just getting to sit, enjoy good company (great food) and relax, especially after 3 days of straight birthday party work (totally fun and totally worth it)!

Deciding what to put everything in is always fun: milk glass, silver, clear glass, mason jars, etc… I went with clear glass, so then do you go with decorative fancy cool shaped stuff or more simple shapes??? I wanted the fun rainbow colors to be the STAR, so I went as simple as I could with all the decor.

Cake plates, trifle plates, bowls, plates, jar’s, vases, mason jars and even a glass loaf pan! These are just pieces I’ve slowly collected and have in my closet! New for this party were the lidded glass jar I had the popcorn in and the glass loaf pan for the truffle pops!

Then the BIG question these days: to label or not to label. HA! I took pictures both ways. In the end I left them on the table because the fudge and marshmallows looked so much alike, and the truffles looked like cake pops! So I have labels if you want them. What do you think? too much, or necessary?

For the favors I shared all the recipes I used in a booklet along with a jar of sprinkles and a bag of cake mix! Kind of like a starter kit. I’ve shared all the recipes here on the blog too (see below for all the links). Some I got from other amazing bloggers (credit linked up), some were simple twists on my own recipes.

For the guests I originally thought about inviting all our local extended family, but then I thought- they don’t actually KNOW Baby Boy… BUT my blogging fiends know and adore him! He’s been my date to all the blogging conferences, parties, GNO’s all year, and even before (I went to a lot of events pregnant!). So inviting them was perfect! In the end we had one of those awful UT fall colds go through town and we lot a lot of fun attendee’s, but we totally enjoyed all the fun ladies (and their children) who made it!

In addition to all the fun party food I also had “normal” food for lunch (and those gluten free friends that I love so much). After 2 days of baking and cooking with cake mix and sprinkles, and taste testing everything, I was a bit sick of cake mix by the party and didn’t actually enjoy any of the goodies myself. But the next night I enjoyed it all at the family party (yes we had two parties- we celebrate all week over here)!

It was really fun to watch Baby Boy interact with the other kids. He loves other babies, and it was fun watching him interact with a sweet little boy just a year older. He’s at that adorable copy cat stage, and he was enthralled by his new friend and followed his lead everywhere, including sitting/laying/sharing/eating, doing everything his new “older” friend was doing! ADORABLE!

(family party set up…)

PDF party labels

Cake Mix & Sprinkles Party posts
Cake Smash, Sprinkles, Truffles, Muddy Buddies, Sprinkles Sandwiches, Cake Batter & Sprinkles dip, Popcorn, No-bake Cheesecake, Fudge, Bark, Cookies, Pretzels, Marshmallows, Rice Krispies, Ice Cream, Dipped Cups, Bunting, Favors, Cake, Cake Batter & Sprinkles Party

Filed Under: baby, birthday, Cakes, Family, Parties, Party cakes · Tagged With: cake batter & sprinkles party, gygi

Baby Boy’s Cake Batter & Sprinkles Birthday Cake

October 11, 2012 by Ashlee · 9 Comments

The CAAAAKE (sing song voice)! I knew I wanted to do a multi-tiered version of my rainbow sprinkle cake! It’s SOOO pretty.

I was worried it would be TOO sprinkle-y, all those tiers covered top to bottom and stacked. So when I saw this Rainbow Jimmy cake on pinterest it was the perfect answer, break it up with some white fondant ribbon along the bottom of each tier.

I debated doing a sprinkled number 1 on the top again, but I ended up going with this washi tape bunting. I haven’t done bunting before, but I think it fits this cake great!.

I have dreams of doing an ombre sprinkle cake. Or all one color maybe… ohhh all white! It’s so quick, easy and versatile! oh oh oh, all white JIMMY’s!!! Or maybe a cake covered in large sugar crystals, right??? Apparently I need to make some “just for fun” cakes, you know when I have a free weekend…

What would you like to see pressed on the sides of a buttercream cake? Favorite candy? M&M’s, Reeces Pieces? I’ve seen more and more of these cakes popping up on pinterest!

We served the middle layer at the “friends” party, and the bottom layer at the “family” party. My kids were upset that they missed the cake smash, they loved the pictures of it. So at the family party we threw the baby and the top tier on a plastic tablecloth and let him have fun… Sadly he wasn’t too interested, which totally bummed out the kids and cousins, but we tried!