Flock Party: Cake

Since our Flock Party was also the celebration of 2 birthdays we needed to have cake. I decided that cupcakes might be a bit more work to bake but much easier to serve at the park. I let each of the kids pick a cake mix. They chose strawberry and white confetti mixes. I decided we needed to have chocolate too. Each mix made 24 cupcakes. My Sistema 5 litter Clip-it containers held 24 cupcakes with some room to spare.

I was contemplating how I was going to get 6 dozen frosted cupcakes to the park without making a mess. I had an inspiration from another party. The weekend before we were at a party where one of the crafts was decorating your own cake. This super mom baked a small cake for each of the kids to decorate. The boys had cars and the girls had cakes with doll bodies to decorate. She mixed different color frostings. She put out bowls and made bags of each color for the kids to frost their cakes. Then there were various bowls of cake decorating sprinkles and candies. Each of the kids got to take their creations home with them. Then she baked a birthday cake for the party.

I would let everyone decorate their own cupcakes. Everyone was able to choose the flavor cupcake they wanted and then was able to put as much or little frosting as they wanted. The kids cheered and some of the parents looked horrified and dove in to help supervise. I purchased several cans of cupcake frosting and used the tubes of cake decorating gel I already had. Add in a few large sprinkles and oh what edible messes did they make. KISS: To keep things simple we only put one tip on each can of frosting and passed out the cans. The kids never knew there were options of different tips and didn't miss them.


Gluten-Free

I did mention that I had a few guest who could not eat gluten. I made a batch of Gluten Free Pantry Spice Cake cupcakes. I ran the oven for 15 minutes at 500 degrees after baking all of the other cupcakes to burn off any stray gluten. Then I baked the cupcakes in new disposable aluminum cupcake trays. I'll reuse the trays. I washed them and wrapped them in a plastic bag to keep them separate from the others. I'm not this sensitive to wheat but some others are. These guest were given the opportunity to ice their cupcakes before the others so the tips of the can wouldn't be exposed to the wheat cupcakes before hand.

The gluten-free cupcakes were definately appreciated. None of them made it back to my home. It is a good thing I had stashed a few in the frig before heading to the park.