Decorations and Cake
Pink tablecloths, pink plates, pink balloons, you get the picture! We hung a pink plastic table cloth up in a doorway, and the sunlight shining through it from the window even bathed the room in a pink glow.
The centerpiece for all this was a pink princess cake. Strawberry flavor of course, so it was even pink on the inside. I baked the cake in a Wilton wonder mold pan, the same one my mom used to make doll cakes for us when I was little! The doll pick that came with the pan was a little worse for wear after all these years, so I used a full sized doll in the cake. This meant that I had to add an 8 inch round cake to bottom of the wonder mold pan to make the doll fit. I just wrapped the legs in plastic wrap, and carved out a hole in the middle of the cake to help her fit in better.
This was my first time ever piping ruffles, and I was pleased to find that the technique is quite simple, though you do need a large amount of frosting when covering a whole cake with it - as you can see I didn't quite make it to the top of the skirt with the pink ruffles. To create ruffles you use a petal tip. Hold the wide side against the surface of cake and move up and down as you apply pressure to the piping bag and move around the cake. If you have a lazy susan that spins to put the cake on while decorating, I would recommend it. I'm saying this since I do not have one and I would've liked to! All in all, I think it turned out well, and I now have another decorating trick up my sleeve. I'm proud of myself for figuring out how to use something besides a star tip and a round tip!
Menu
This is the part that took the most inspiration from my little sister, though we did add in a few new menu items.
Pink Rice - Put pink or red food coloring in the water and the rice turns bright cotton candy pink!
Pink Mac 'n Cheese - We just got a boxed white cheddar mac 'n cheese and added pink food coloring.
Shrimp - You can cook your own, but we just got a shrimp cocktail platter from the grocery store. Ham would be another good protein that's pink.
Pink Fruit Wands - I did a post about these a while back for the 4th of July. Use cookie cutters to cut out shapes from slices of watermelon for the top of the skewers. Under that we used strawberries and grapes.
Pink Lemonade
Activities
We mostly just let the kids run around and play with each other unstructured, but we did have a little crown decorating craft that was a big hit with the kids and adults alike!
Happy Birthday Princess Rosemary! Thanks for all the joy you bring to our lives!
