Simran's 3rd Birthday

Simran's 3rd birthday is coming up, and when I asked her what she wanted, she said ice cream cake, so we're having ice cream cake.  Because ice cream cake without the chocolate crunchies OR with actual frozen cake instead is absolutely terrible, we're going the Carvel route.  Did you know Carvel is mostly an East Coast phenomenon?  I didn't.  I considered making the cake myself, but that's a lot of work, and I'm rather looking forward to not baking a cake and trying to clean the kitchen up again right before having house guests.  They sell plain Carvel cakes at the local grocery store, and since the closest Carvel store an hour away doesn't carry cakes, I'm going to buy one from the grocery store and just decorate it myself.  I'm going to do it just a couple hours before her party since I doubt it will fit in my freezer.

Sim also said she wants a Thomas & Friends themed birthday party, so we've got lots of blue and red stuff.  I'm terrible at cake decorating, but I found a little Thomas cake kit on Amazon, and I'll do the writing with a tube of sparkly red gel frosting I have leftover from Sameer's last birthday.  I also bought some green sprayable (?!) airbrush-looking frosting from the grocery store to make grass.  I think I'll get blue for sky too if the green appears to work.  I have a random snack pack of pretzel sticks in the pantry, so I'm going to coat them in chocolate and lay them down as train tracks across the cake.  As long as I don't have to draw anything, it should look okay.  I bought blue and red rock candy at Party City simply because it was there and I think rock candy is beautiful.  It was probably a bad financial decision.  I think the only time I ever ate some I was ten, and I can't imagine people will eat it.  I saw a table centerpiece on Pinterest that consisted of a Thomas toy, followed by freight cars made from loaf pans with Oreo wheels (and marshmallow axles), so I'm making that to hold some of the other food stuffs liked cookies and crackers and cubed cheese.  Essentially it looks like Thomas is hauling the party food onto the table.  I found brown paper loaf pans on Amazon that should work well as freight cars.  I bought the large ones since the others wouldn't hold much.

Since one of our regular birthday party guests is allergic to eggs and another eats a gluten-free diet -- and Carvel ice cream cake contains both eggs and gluten -- I'm making Rice Krispie Treats too.  I'm going to cut them into smallish cubes and put them on skewers like lollipops (Amazon sells 6" bamboo skewers for wicked cheap, and I already have some from making vegetable kabobs) and  drizzle them with blue- and red-dyed white chocolate just for looks.  I'm going to aim to use up some of the other stuff I buy, like the Oreos, by dipping and drizzling them in chocolate too.  And maybe do the same with leftover marshmallows, half dipped in chocolate and then sprinkled with blue sugar or drizzled with the colored white chocolate, served on skewers (the people on Pinterest do this sort of thing a lot apparently).  These are things that will be exceedingly simple and yet look pretty, which is what I'm going for here.  The best chocolate chips I've found are the Trader Joe's brand, both in semi-sweet and white chocolate.  Nestle isn't bad, but the Meijer store brand ones are practically inedible.  You can also make dipping chocolate from a chopped up chocolate bar, or from mixing multiple varieties of chocolate -- the most important thing is that it be good quality, not vomitous garbage like Hershey's makes.  The product that markets itself as melting chocolate and dipping chocolate is just chocolate discs of questionable quality with the vegetable shortening already worked in or coating it, so don't waste your money on that.

Here is the menu for Simran's party:

Broccoli Florets, Baby Carrots, Grape Tomatoes & Homemade Ranch Dressing

Sliced Fruit, Berries, and Fruit Dip (I'm using the amendments in the "most helpful" review)

Various Crackers & Cubed Cheeses

Rice Krispie Treats (I need to double the recipe to make them thick enough in my baking dish of choice)

Dipping/Drizzling Chocolate (1 tsp vegetable shortening per 1 cup chocolate chips, heated and stirred until melted; I'm going to use a tiny amount of food coloring in the white chocolate to make blue and red drizzling chocolate)

Ice Cream Cake (store bought)

Organic Mango Lemonade (sold ready made at Trader Joe's), water, sodas