As a mother of a 9 year old and another one turning 7 shortly, there is plenty of experience now regarding the planning of kids birthday parties. I have gone all the routes for this ..... from planning and executing the entire party on my own to holding parties in play gyms, gaming arcades and similar places where the children have a lot of activities they can do. In such venues, we also tend to show up as guests in someway as the organizers at the venue have taken sufficient care of the details that you need. This was easy to do when the kids were younger, but recently my kids have really enjoyed the idea of theme parties. Last year for the first time, I did a theme party for my son. It was a minecraft theme party and it took considerable effort to organize everything including the themed food and games and I even made a pinata myself! So this time around, when he asked me for a Star Wars themed party, I was much better prepared. Of course experience makes a difference and me armed with this experience set out to plan a fun filled evening for my son and his friends.

There were a lot of details that had been planned around the party but the things that matter the most in a kids party are the cake, the food, the decor and the games. In this entry I will talk about the cake and the food. I decided to make a chocolate cake with chcolate mousse filling and decorated with Swiss Meringue Buttercream icing. Both my kids do not like fondant on cakes. So while that is the easier way to decorate cakes and generally has very good results, it was not an option for me. To give the cake, the look and feel of the theme, I decided to buy a cake decoset. Coupling the decoset with icing colors in line with the theme allowed me to have a delicious cake that looked as good as it tasted.

For the food, there was a lot of inspiration online from mothers who had done this already. In the menu there were Kyber Crystals made with Konnyaku jelly. I used a pack of Chex Mix and labelled it Droid Parts (Yes and I even made the cool labels myself!!). There were Pocky Sticks called Sith Sticks, and fruit skewers named Fruit Sabers. I made rice crispies treats at home and formed them into round balls to make Asteroids and a bag of potato chips were named Vader Tater Chips :) I even created themed labels for regular bottled drinks and it just made the same drinks a lot more fun for the kids.

For the cake, I used the Too Much Chocolate Cake from the blog to make the cake layers. I used Nigella Lawson's recipe for Instant Chocolate Mousse and this recipe from Smitten Kitchen for the buttercream.

Star Wars Cake

For the cake:

I made 2 batches of the recipe Too Much Chocolate Cake in a square baking pan lined with parchment paper. Each layer was baked separately, then cooled on a baking rack and upon cooling, the top was levelled.

Instant Chocolate Mousse

Ingredients:

150 grams mini marshmallows

1/2 stick / 50 grams soft butter

9 oz / 250 grams good dark chocolate (minimum 70% cocoa solids) chopped into small pieces

1/4 cup / 60 ml hot water

1 cup/285 ml double cream

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Method:

1. Put the marshmallows, butter, chocolate and water in a heavy-based saucepan.

2. Put the saucepan on the hob, over low heat, to melt the contents, stirring every now and again. Remove from the heat.

3. Meanwhile, whip the cream with the vanilla extract until thick, and then fold into the cool chocolate mixture till the ingredients are well combined. Use this mousse immediately to fill the cake.

Swiss Meringue Buttercream

Ingredients:

1 cup sugar

4 egg whites

3 sticks unsalted butter (cut into cubes and chilled well to survive the hot Singapore weather)

1 tsp vanilla extract

Method:

1. Whisk egg whites and sugar together in a big metal bowl over a pot of simmering water. Whisk occasionally until you can’t feel the sugar granules when you rub the mixture between your fingers.

2. Transfer mixture into the mixer and whip until it turns white and about doubles in size.

3. Add the vanilla extract to the egg white mixture and mix well.

4. Add the chilled butter, one cube at a time and continue to whip thill the buttercream becomes a smooth fluffy mixture. Keep the buttercream in a cool place till it is ready to be used. It can be prepared ahead time and whipped right before use.

Assembling the cake

1. Line the assembling cake tin with foil all around with enough overhang to be able to pull out the cake when required.

2. Place once layer of cake in the tin. Spread the mousse evenly on top of the cake layer and cover with the second layer of cake. Cover the cake with the overhang of the foil on all sides and put it in the refrigerator to chill for a 6-8 hours or preferably overnight to ensure the mousse sets up well in the cake.

3. Remove the cake from the tin and spead the buttercream on it in one thin layer. Repeat with another layer of buttercream to ensure the cake is well covered with the frosting and place in the refrigerator while you prepare the other frosting colors.

4. Divide the remaining frosting into the number of colors you want and tint it according to the theme. Add the different colors into piping bags and place tips needed for icing each color.

5. Decorate the cake with the icings in different colors and place the decoset on top to complete the cake.

Birthday Party Themed Food

Asteroids

These are treats made from marshmallows and rice crispies adapted from this recipe from Allrecipes . This is an all time favorite with my children and I've made it in all kinds of shapes. From minecraft blocks to crispy coal to these asteroids, these have come to the rescue always. Even when my daughter wanted heart shaped crispies, they were easy to put together.

Ingredients

1/4 cup butter

5 cups rice crispies cereal

4 cups mini marshmallows

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

few drops black color (or any other color of your choice)

Method:

Melt butter in large sauce pan over low heat. Add marshmallows and stir until melted and well-blended. Add vanilla extract, color and cook 2 minutes longer, stirring constantly. Remove from heat. Add cereal. Stir until well coated. To make asteroids, wet your hands with water, grab some of the mixture and shape into uneven balls. To cut into square shapes, u sing buttered spatula or waxed paper, press mixture evenly and firmly in buttered 13 x 9 inch pan. Cut into squares when cool.

Fruit Sabers

Take green/red grapes and black long grapes. In a bamboo skewer put the black grapes on the bottom and green/red grapes on top till the end of the skewer.

Kyber Crystals

Cook Konnyaku jelly as per package instructions. Color the different batches red, blue, green, purple or any other colors of your choice. Let the jelly cool and become firm. When the jelly is set completely, cut into crystal shapes and serve.