Bakerella has outdone herself yet again! Apparently she has received a ton of requests for Elmo Cake Pops so in celebration of Sesame Street’s 40th Birthday, she created Oscar, Cookie Monster, Big Bird and Elmo cake pops.

Be sure to visit Bakerella’s Street Party post where she has shared over 26 pictures with instructions on how to make these delightful treats! Just perfect for a Sesame Street themed birthday party!

To find local businesses offering birthday discounts & freebies for adults, kids and pets, visit: Free Birthday Treats.

Subscribe for delivery of new posts via RSS or email

There are many kids who are little chefs in disguise, and even if they aren’t, come Thanksgiving, when everyone is in the kitchen, the kids will appreciate helping you out!  It’s a great way to get them involved in the excitement of the big meal.  Children will appreciate contributing in any way that they can.

When thinking about some tasks they can do, keep in mind both the child’s age and the amount of time a task takes to do.  Make sure that the kitchen fun is age-appropriate, i.e young children should not be using knives or other sharp objects preparing food, and these types of objects should be out of reach so no accidents take place.  You may want to provide an apron to your little chef to protect clothes and help them get in the mood. Also, remember that kids will not want to be in the kitchen the whole day, as there are parades to watch, the football to throw, and perhaps a turkey craft to do.  So, keep their time in the kitchen limited to keep them excited, but not bored and restless.

Here are some great cooking ideas for the kids:

• Mash the potatoes
• Fill the pie shells with the filling
• Stuff the celery with cream cheese
• Arrange the vegetable tray
• Set out cheese and crackers
• Stir Jell-O
• Freeze ice cubes with cranberries
• Stuff the turkey
• Place ingredients in the salad and toss
• Whip the cream
• Fill the deviled eggs
• Rolling out the pie crust 

All of these will be fun.  If you have older kids (tweens and teens), perhaps they would like to peel potatoes and/or make the pie filling.

This is a great Thanksgiving Day activity and will really get your children into the spirit of the feast!

By Lisa Kothari, Peppers and Pollywogs

It’s here! The day that ghosts, goblins and creatures of all sorts venture out to collect their free treats!

If you still need some pumpkin carving ideas, check out our previous post, Free Pumpkin Carving Patterns, Stencils & Templates. You’ll be sure to find a pumpkin carving template to help you design just about anything!

Do you like to toast or roast pumpkin seeds? Check out these links for some helpful tips and recipes:

• Rachael Ray: Halloween Central – Several Roast Pumpkin Seed Recipes
• Disney FamilyFun: Toasted Pumpkin Seed Snack
• Allrecipes.com: Roasted Pumpkin Seeds
• TucsonCitizen.com: Pumpkin seeds: Something different to try
• wikiHow.com: How to Roast Pumpkin Seeds (includes pics and video)
• eHow.com: How to Roast Pumpkin Seeds (video series)

Don’t forget the FREEBIES! Visit our recent post, Halloween Freebies, so you don’t miss out on some free food and treats…for ALL ages!

Just for fun, check out the following links of pets dressed up in costumes for Halloween:

• PawNation.com: Pet Halloween Costumes
• Good Housekeeping: Dog Star Wars Costumes
• The Huffington Post: Costumed Critters: The Funniest Pet Get-Ups Ever

Last, but not least, have a spooktacular and safe Halloween!

To find local businesses offering birthday discounts & freebies for adults, kids and pets, visit: Free Birthday Treats.

Subscribe for delivery of new posts via RSS or email

We all know this age-old rhyme as Halloween approaches:

Trick or treat, you’re so neat.
 Give me something good to eat.
 Nuts and candy, fruit and gum. 
I’ll go away if you give me some.

Trick or treat, smell my feet.
 I know you’ll give us lots of treats.
 Not too big, not too small,
maybe the size of Montreal.

Trick or Treat, Trick or Treat,
 Give me something nice to eat.
 If you don’t, we don’t care,
 we’ll put money in your underwear!

Cute, huh?

Halloween Eve will be a time for your children and their friends to get together, don their costumes, and head out into the crisp night air with their torches to light the way. Here are some ideas for the festivities to help you celebrate the fun this year.

Invite the kids to your home to get into their costumes. A lot of the early part of the evening will be taken with getting ready. Make sure to play some creepy music to get everyone in the mood. Afterwards, snapping photos, ooohing and aaaahing over each other, lighting the pumpkins, and making sure everyone has their flashlights, glow sticks, and loot bags will also be important next steps.

OK, the main part of the night will be the actual trick or treat! Make sure to hit all of the “good” houses in the neighborhoods, i.e. the ones known for giving out mini loot bags or people who deck out their homes and act out a scary scene when they thrust open the doors. Adult supervision will be necessary, and make sure to keep the group together. It’s an awesome 90 minutes or so … enjoy!

Upon return, the kids will be very interested in a treat (perhaps something to cut all that sugar) beside their treats. Use orange and black Halloween party supplies to keep everyone in the mood.

You can have snacks ready made with punch. Bloody knuckles would be fun, as would chicken tenders served with BBQ sauce, black tortilla chips, deep purple grapes, etc. This will also be a time when they will be dumping out their loot bag, looking for their favorites, and trading one goody for another…it’s a sugary time, to be sure!

After all of this fun, the kids will be off and into the night as their parents pick them up and take them home. Gathering together to celebrate this special tradition together will mark the evening as truly memorable.

Happy Spooks!

By Lisa Kothari, Peppers and Pollywogs

Tune in to Ace of Cakes October 8th at 10pm EDT to see the American Cancer Society’s new, official birthday cake!

Be sure to enter for their giveaway as well! Deadline is October 9th.

We have a poster signed by Chef Duff himself that we’re giving away to one lucky person. Just share your thoughts on the episode in the comment section (and read the rules after the break) to win.

You can enter by clicking here.

Recently the American Cancer Society(ACS) teamed up with the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) challenging the baking and pastry students to invent a healthier birthday cake.  And who should help with choosing a winner from the five talented finalists? None other than the fabulously creative  “Ace of Cakes” Chef Duff Goldman.

The winner’s, Chef Alexandra Mudry, new, healthier red velvet cake is now the official birthday cake for the American Cancer Society. It’s certainly a unique cake recipe and available for download on their site.

If you haven’t heard of the American Cancer Society’s More Birthdays campaign. It’s simple, just declare ACS as the official sponsor of your birthday and encourage others to do so as well.

Back in April, I wrote about More Birthdays and also created a donation page in memory of my own father, who passed away very unexpectedly because of cancer. He was only 49. This is why birthdays are so special to me and why I want my loved ones to have more birthdays.

Please help us fight cancer and spread the word!

Thank you!

Halloween Trick or Treat Cake Pops

Known throughout the foodie blogsphere and beyond, Angie Dudley aka Bakerella, creates some of the most amazing sweet treats you’ll ever find! Even better, she provides not only written instruction and supply lists, but lots of great pics to help you along as well.

If you’re feeling crafty and looking for some great Halloween goodies to make with your kids or share with your grandkids, here are some pictures of some of the tasty treats Bakerella has whipped up. Just think of the fun you can having planning a Halloween themed birthday party!

Sweet and Spooky Halloween Cookies

Clicking on any of these pictures will take you right over to Bakerella’s site to see her creative and innovative techniques used to make these fabulous goodies.

Halloween Cupcakes

Pumpkin Pie Bites

Aren’t these awesome? Are you or someone you know cooking up some tasty Halloween treats that you’d like to share? If so, let us know! Leave a comment with a link to your foodie post(s). Thanks!

To find local businesses offering birthday discounts & freebies for adults, kids and pets, visit my website, Free Birthday Treats.

Subscribe for delivery of new posts via RSS or email

Banana Splits are so yummy, especially for kids during summertime. One of the BEST parts of this ice cream classic is that you can either make your own concoctions or stick to the tried and true. If your child loves to make and eat banana splits, a great summer-themed party could revolve all around making, judging, and eating them!

Make invitations using bright yellow construction paper cut out into the shape of bananas. Write all of the party details on one side, and draw brown spots on the other. Alternatively, hand-deliver real bananas with tags tied to them that include all of the party details. In the invitation, ask the guests to bring their own favorite ingredient for making banana splits along with them, or have them bring a banana that they dress up in some way, i.e. with a hat on it.

Decorate the party area with yellow and brown balloons, streamers, and party ware. Have a large piece of butcher paper lying flat on a table. The kids can draw a huge banana split together and hang it in the party area.

Make the banana splits on the party table. Be sure to arrange the table so that there are dishes with all of the toppings laid out, as well as spoons, bowls, etc. You may want to pull the chairs away from the table while the kids are making their sundaes.

The main activity of the party will be making banana splits. You can have a competition where the kids make their splits using the ingredients you have laid out and the special ingredient they brought. Hold a tasting competition, where everyone gets to taste everyone else’s and wins prizes.

If you have had the kids bring a banana that is “dressed up,” have a competition to see whose is most creative, the funniest, etc. Hand out banana candies as prizes and make sure everyone wins!

Play Pass the Banana like Pass the Parcel.

Have the kids jump up and down and do “banana splits!”

Hold a series of relay races with bananas. Divide the kids into two teams, and have a bowl of bananas at the opposite end of where the kids race from. When a kid runs down, he or she must peel a banana, eat it, place the peel on his or her head, and race back to the team. The first team done wins!

For another relay race, have the kids peel a banana at the start, race down to the other end and make a mini banana split, eat it, and race back. The next kid must do the same. The first team done wins!

For a favor, have the kids exchange toppings that they brought. Combine them into plastic Tupperware containers so the kids can try them on banana splits they make at home!

By Lisa Kothari, Peppers and Pollywogs

What a great budget birthday party idea that will be fabulous fun for the kids: a FOOD FIGHT! If the idea interests you and your child, here are some ways to put this together:

1. It would be great to host this party outdoors, but it you are willing to have the food fight indoors, it would be good to have it in a space that you don’t mind getting messy, like a garage or a basement or perhaps a shed if there is enough room inside. You may want to cover the space with plastic so that clean up is very easy afterward.

2. When the kids arrive at the party, for both safety and easy clean up, provide kids with shower caps, plastic goggles, and a rain poncho to wear. These will keep the kids safe and relatively clean through the food fight.

3. After they have their outfits on, give the kids a bag of marshmallows and slingshots, and they can start the fun of slinging marshmallows at one another as they wait for everyone to arrive. Make sure the kids are supervised in the designated party area.

3. On a table, put out lots of foods that are perfect for a food fight, spaghetti, whipped cream, mashed potatoes, chocolate pudding, Jell-O, Cereal, hard boiled eggs, popcorn, oatmeal, bananas, etc. Whatever you like, and you can make it even more interesting by putting food dye into the different foods, for example, green mashed potatoes.

4. You may want to announce a few “rules” to the kids before the food fight breaks out: some suggestions include: they must keep their goggles on, they must stop throwing if they hear the sound of a whistle or something else you find appropriate, and that the food fight must stay within the space you have designated.

5. If there are kids who do not feel comfortable participating, let them have fun watching on the sidelines.

6. Make sure to have your video camera out to capture this fun!

7. You can also have the kids play some organized “food games,” including blindfolding the kids and having them eat donuts that have been strung on a string. First kid finished eating his donut wins! Have the kids partner up and feed each other pudding standing 5 ft. away from one another using a plastic spoon. Afterward, the kids can use squirt guns to clean themselves up.

8. Your party menu can be very simple, as they will be playing with the food at this party, more than eating any of it! Serve ice cream and cake to top the party off.

9. Send the kids home with a splattered brown paper bag filled with good food: a piece of fruit, a veggie, pudding pack, etc. as a reminder of their foodie fun!

By Lisa Kothari, Peppers and Pollywogs

A huge thank you to Heather Reynolds at Birthday In A Box for writing this wonderful guest post!

It is always fun to bake a cake that fits your birthday theme! Try one of these tasty and creative cakes that won’t take you hours to make:

Cow Face – For a Fun Farm or Cowboy Party

Bake a round cake and frost with white frosting. With black frosting or decorator icing, draw on the cow’s spots. Split a cupcake in half and frost each piece to form ears. Use M&Ms, Skittles, black licorice string, and other candy to create eyes, nostrils, a mouth and other facial features.

Paw Print – Perfect for Puppy Parties

Place four small cupcakes around the top half of a round cake to create a paw print. Frost everything in the color of your choice.

Castle – For Princesses and Knights

Bake two 8″ or 9″ square cakes and use frosting to stack the two layers. Frost the entire cake pink for a princess’ castle, or grey for a knight’s castle. Frost four ice cream cones to match the cake, and set them upside down in the four corners to create turrets. Use black decorator icing to draw on the details, such as bricks or door frames. Stick miniature flags on toothpicks into the ice cream cones and stand tiny princess or knight figures around the cake for added decoration.

Football – A Sweet Treat for the Superbowl

Cut an 8″ or 9″ round cake in half and trim off a 1″-wide strip from the flat side of each half. (You won’t need these extra strips.) Slide the two halves of the cake back together to form a football shape. Frost the cake with chocolate icing and use white icing to pipe football stitches in a -I-I-I-I- pattern in the center of the cake.

Beach Scene – For a Summer or Beach Bash

Frost one half of a 9″x13″ cake in blue frosting and the other half in yellow frosting. Draw a rippled edge between the two halves to create a wavy shoreline. Crush graham crackers and sprinkle them over the yellow frosting to give the appearance of sand. Set a miniature toy boat on the ocean side of the cake, and use different colors of food gel to draw seashells and tiny crabs on the shore side. Use drink umbrellas to add the finishing touches.

Flower – Perfect for a Girl’s Only or Garden Party

Surround a round cake with cupcakes or Twinkies to create a flower. Ice the center with yellow frosting and the cupcake/Twinkie petals with pink or lavender frosting. For a special touch, set a plastic bee on top.

Racetrack – For Your Racecar Fans

Frost a 9″x13″ cake in green frosting. Use a tube of black decorator frosting to draw the outline of an oval racetrack around the edge of the cake. Fill the outline with chocolate sprinkles or crushed Oreos to resemble pavement. Set a few miniature toy cars on the racetrack and set up a “finish line” marked by miniature flags on toothpicks. You can also add plastic trees to the center of the cake to finish it off.

For more themed cake ideas, visit Birthday Cake Ideas at Birthday in a Box.

Today I will be spending the day celebrating our freedom and my daughter’s birthday. Yep…she’s a 4th of July baby, well not really a baby anymore…geez they grow up fast! We are commandeering my brother-in-law’s house so we can go swimming and have a BBQ. What else do you do when it’s over 100 degrees?

So I’m going through the cupboard to see what cake mixes I stocked up on when they were on sale as well as frosting and found a package of Reynold’s Star Fun Shapes, a package of decorating gel tubes and a load of candles. Jackpot!!! Now if we can just get them to look like these…aren’t the cherry pie cupcakes adorable?

Flickr photo by tokyopop

Cupcakes and cupcake cakes are are all the rage this year.  Check out Reynold’s Cupcake Central or Simply Sweet Expressions to see some cool creations. Here is a website that provides some how-to tips for cupcake cakes, Easy Cupcakes.

A special thank you to all our soldiers overseas and their families for sacrificing so much so we an enjoy this special day!

Don’t want to miss out on other tidbits and giveaways?

Subscribe by email or RSS reader!