The crème de la crème of my daughter’s American Girl Tea Party Birthday were these Ice Cream Flowerpots. They were all she talked about after visiting the American Girl Bistro for a friend’s birthday a year ago, so I knew they absolutely had to make it to the tea-table when we had our own American Girl party. They took a little time, but the delight on the girl’s faces when I brought them to the table made the energy put forth totally worth it!
After begging for an American Girl doll the past three years, my daughter’s greatest desire was granted her last birthday with the gift of a green-eyed, curly blonde haired mini-me. She promptly named her doll “Maddie” and they’ve been inseparable ever since. The gratification of at last owning an American Girl doll all of her own could only be topped by celebrating her birthday this year with a themed American Girl tea party extravaganza. She wanted all her friends to come over and play dolls with her, while enjoying a delightful (and very grown up) tea. So here’s my great big American Girl Tea Party Birthday post, complete with free printable invitations, menus, name tags and all the food and craft ideas you could hope for!
If you have a child between the ages of 3 and 13, chances are, you’ve seen The Lego Movie and have endured enjoyed endless hours of “Everything is Awesome” being sung, hummed, whistled and generally trapped in your subconscious. My little rugrats can be found most days sprawled on the floor singing as they create masterful designs with their Legos. For my son’s 6th birthday, we went all out Lego awesomeness.
Here’s the great big Lego party post including great (well, I think so anyway) free printables from me, the best cake and frosting recipe ever, and a round-up of the amazing things others have created that helped me pull of a party enjoyed by folks from ages 3-87.
Confession. I’m a giant bookworm. It’s a condition that dates back to my early childhood. My parents have time-lapse video from Christmases long past where I don’t move from the same armchair for over 10 hours. I’m a constant figure as the room buzzes with holiday activity around me. Motionless, except the occasional turning of a page. My favorite place to be is completely engrossed in a great novel, oblivious to the world passing me by. As such, it’s no great surprise that I’ve always wanted to host a book club. I was recently given the opportunity to start one with friends, and I jumped at the chance. Books and my best gals? Win-win. Bonus prizes for me include the excuse to use my grandmother’s dainty teacups, and making delicious treats for my guests. I began with this amazing cranberry upside down coffeecake.
My mother has been making this cake as long as I can remember. As a child, the thought of a vegetable baked into a cake was just supremely odd. Now I know that little flecks of zucchini melt into the chocolate batter making the texture and richness just perfect.
Great neighbors are hard to come by. I know someone (who shall remain nameless) who lives next to a family where the kids play a game called “Am I Being Murdered?”. An activity that’s such fun, it has to be enjoyed during every single hour of every single day. A jolly good time for the whole housing development I’m sure. On the other end of the spectrum are the good folks who reside just over the fence from me. Specifically the very talented gardener of the family, who delivers just picked fruit and vegetables to my greedy doorstep all summer long. I get nature’s bounty freely given with zero effort on my part. It’s simply divine. Just this week I’ve received zucchini, cucumber, apples (two kinds), and most delicious of all, plums. They arrive in bags and buckets. Fragrant, juicy, mildly tart and perfect.
It didn’t take much convincing for my children to believe that plums are far better than candy. They have free reign to enjoy a succulent treat from the plum basket whenever they want. Both munchkins are now consistently a sticky mess of dribbly plum juice and I don’t even care.
This recipe is a quick bread that tastes dangerously close to a cake. It’s sweetness and light with a hint of tart sprinkled throughout from the plums. Delicious. It would be perfect for a brunch, ladies tea, afternoon snack, or dessert. Basically, whenever you want to eat it, do.
You can use yogurt instead of sour cream if that’s what you have handy. The batter is nice and thick so all those beautiful plum pieces won’t sink to the bottom of your bread. I also baked this in mini loaf pans as well as a 9-inch square cake pan. Both turned out with a perfect texture and golden crust. Just adjust your bake time accordingly. I started by baking about 30 minutes then checked on my cake bread every 5 minutes or so until it was done.
Print Recipe For Plum Cake Bread
Plum Cake Bread
adapted from Allrecipes.com
1 cup pitted, chopped plums
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
1/2 cup butter
1 cup white sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/3 cup sour cream
1/4 cup brown sugar
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Spray a 9×5-inch loaf pan with cooking spray, or line with parchment paper.
2. Sprinkle chopped plums with 1 tablespoon of flour in a bowl, and toss to coat. Set aside. In a large bowl, beat the butter, white sugar, and vanilla extract with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs. In another bowl, sift together 1 1/2 cup of flour with salt, cinnamon and baking soda. Stir the dry ingredients into the egg mixture, alternating with sour cream until the mixture forms a smooth batter. Lightly stir in the flour-coated plums, and pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan. Sprinkle the top of the batter with brown sugar.
3. Bake in the preheated oven until a toothpick inserted into the center of the loaf comes out clean, 45 to 50 minutes. Remove from oven, and let cool in the pan 10 to 15 minutes before removing from pan for slicing.
If you are familiar with dump cake, you’ll see the genius of this recipe immediately. My mom used to make dump cake when I was a kid. I’ll have to post that “recipe” sometime soon. It’s essentially canned fruit, topped with dry cake mix and smothered with butter. Not really a cake in the traditional sense, but delicious. I saw this pumpkin version and knew it would be ah-mazing. And it was. This is two delightful desserts combined into one. Pumpkin pie on the bottom and pecan pie on top. Custardy spiced goodness covered with crunchy buttery caramelized nut topping. I’m telling you, it’s far too easy for how gorgeous it turns out.
We had the mother of all rainbow birthdays this weekend for my sweet six-year-old Madison. My house looked like a unicorn threw up all over. It was epic fun. A hyperactivity inducing, spectrum spectacular. Brightly colored craziness. We had a blast. The pièce de résistance of the party was a stunning six layer rainbow cake. It was truly a sight to behold. It requires a bit of time, but is totally worth it for an awe inspired gasp from your guests when you cut it open.
I discovered the most disturbing thing last weekend. There are people who (brace yourself…this is earth shattering news) don’t like cake. Seriously? I thought my crazy husband was the only genetically deficient (and I mean that in the nicest way possible) one. But apparently, there are more of you out there. One of them is my sister Elizabeth. Yes, the Lizzy of cowboy salsa and pirate’s punch doesn’t like cake. It is just so depressing. She does like pie though. Pumpkin pie specifically. So for her birthday last weekend I made plans to cook up some pumpkin-y fall deliciousness.
I started thinking about blueberries after my 6th friend posted on Facebook that they were blueberry picking. No joke. Who knew that all the cool kids go blueberry picking in August? Actually, come to think of it, a few weeks ago when my sister watched my munchkins, she took them out to harvest some blueberries from a local farm. I totally should have though of doing that! Man! When did I become such an un-fun mom? Gotta work on that! It seems to me that with all this berry picking going on, folks might appreciate a recipe (or seven) to use up some of that abundant fruit. So here’s the great big Bakerlady’s Best of Blueberries post!
