Cupcakes and Friends

This past weekend I hosted a cupcake decorating play date for the pre-school set. My son is friends with a lot of great kids and we couldn't include everyone for this type of event, so I decided to go with inviting only girls. Girls at this age seem to be able to sit and concentrate longer. This also enabled me to do a pink cupcake theme (also my son's favorite color).

I was inspired by a recent visit to Duff's CakeMix (http://www.duffscakemix.com) here in LA. Duff's CakeMix is an awesome place (but super expensive) where you can decorate cupcakes (8 for $60) or a small cake. You choose your frosting colors, toppings and fondant and then decorate. For a 3.5 year old, this meant 20 min of fun and then done.

For our party we invited three girlfriends over and I set up the decorating in the dining room. Each child was given 3 chocolate cupcakes (Martha Stewart's Devil's Food Chocolate) and 3 vanilla cupcakes (vanilla champagne), four toppins (m&ms, colored sprinkles, blue round balls, and hot pink sprinkles). I then provided four brightly colored frostings (all butter cream with food coloring).

 

The kids had the best time decorating. It was so much fun to watch how each child decorates. My son of course did the pump and dump - pump on frosting (or ask mom to do it) and then dump the toppings. He also ate the m&ms (faster than they were placed on the cupcake). Our friend G took her time placing each sprinkle on individually.  

The results were fantastic. Each child had a cupcake to eat, one for the parent and the last four were packaged in cute cupcake boxes to take home. As each child ate their cupcake (from top to bottom) they would stop and say they were finished when they had just the cake part left. I was quick to introduce a second decorating option and then the cupcake was devoured.