My youngest turned 4 this weekend! It has been so much fun celebrating with him. He has been thrilled about every aspect of his birthday. He eats, lives and breathes Ben 10 lately and wanted everyone to dress up like a Ben 10 character for his party. He was Ben and I was Ben's cousin Gwen. His brothers were two different versions of Ben (he looks different at different ages throughout the TV series) and dad was Swampfire, an alien hero. J Blaze was thoroughly happy with his party and wore his new omnitrix watch until I forced him to take it off at bedtime. Sweet little boy!
His birthday cake request was for a chocolate cake with chocolate chips and chocolate frosting. I must say he made a great choice! It was delicious! I used Kathryn's coconut flour chocolate cupcake recipe from her wonderful blog, ChaCha's Gluten Free Kitchen. I make these chocolate cupcakes all the time and love them! I doubled the recipe and made four 9-inch round cake layers with it. I sprinkled chocolate chips on each layer and sort of mixed them in lightly before baking. I greased the pans and put parchment in the bottom of them and the layers came out very easily. I made my favorite Hershey's "Perfectly Chocolate" Chocolate Frosting. It is very simple: melt 1 stick of butter, add 2/3 cup cocoa powder and alternately add 3-4 cups powdered sugar and 3-5 Tbsp milk (I used coconut milk) until creamy. Layer the frosting between each of the 4 cake layers and enjoy! I served it with my homemade coconut milk ice cream.
For those interested, the cake represents the Omnitrix, Ben 10's watch. It was very easy to make and the green center is colored naturally with chlorophyl. We handed out glow bracelets at the door and played an alien shooting game that I got at Party City. Then, we melted an alien that had been frozen overnight in water in a plastic tub. I dumped the block of ice in the empty water table in the backyard and filled pots of warm water. The kids lined up and took turns dumping cups of warm water on the alien until it was freed. Thanks to this blog post for the idea. Then, they just played in the backyard. I have learned over the years of birthday parties with three boys, that simple is almost always more fun!
And lastly, thanks to my mom, sister and my girlfriends who make throwing kids' birthday parties so much more manageable! They are always there to help serve the cake, scoop the ice cream, clean my kitchen and everything in between!
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