My Abby is 3

My last catch up post from a very busy holiday season. My Abby turned 3 right before Christmas. So because we have a live tree and have to have the tree up, I always try to incorporate the Christmas decorations into her birthday party theme. This year the theme was Christmas Candy. The awesome tree decorations were from Michael's. I used 2 pool noodles, rolled and tied with ribbon (to hold their shape) and then wrapped in cellophane to look like 2 large candies.

The cake was a Pinterest inspired chocolate cake with chocolate icing, Kit Kat bars and Smarties. Be very glad your child wasn't having a piece before being sent home, lol! I baked 2 9" round chocolate cakes (from the box). Then made some chocolate icing and iced them both. The Kit Kat bars were placed around the outside. If they pulled away from the cake at all I used a little bit of chocolate icing as 'mortar' if you will. This held them on so well that I didn't need to tie a ribbon around to hold them on like some the Pinterest cakes I had seen. I realized part way around that I was not going to have enough Kit Kat bars to place each one side by side with no gap, so I had to space them far enough apart to make it all the way around, but not too far apart that the Smarties on top would fall out. My advice: buy extra Kit Kat bars, really not going to go to waste even if they are not used on the cake ;o) But the little gaps actually made cutting the cake easier, so I leave it to you to decide. Smarties go on top, I did push some in, but the icing had firmed up by this point so I didn't push them all in and yet they stayed really well. What I learned: that this cake can look good, really good, even if a regular person makes it!

For the tray underneath, another Pinterest idea, I bought the hard peppermint candies at Bulk Barn. Here's the link to my Pinspiration. We unwrapped each candy and put them on our pizza pan with some parchment paper on it. You can make them into any shape you like. Then into the oven at 350 degrees for around 8 to 10 minutes. Then remove and let cool completely before removing from the pan. My lessons learned: our tray did have a bit of a bubbled bottom, I think possibly from the holes in the pizza pan. Next time I'd try a cookie sheet. It is also quite fragile. And you will have to watch the children, I had a least 2 try to lick it!