The moment I found out I was having a baby girl, I already knew what her 1st birthday party theme would be: Hello Kitty, of course! As a lifelong fan of the red-bowed childhood favorite, it was the obvious choice.
With a sweet tooth the size of California and a penchant for baked goods, I wanted to make the dessert buffet the centerpiece. So I set out to bake cake pops, Rice Krispy treats, cupcakes and sugar cookies. Sounds ambitious, I know — especially since I had never made sugar cookies in my life! (I chose a brilliant time to learn!) But I goaled myself on accomplishing them along with all the other treats. Other than the birthday cake and the popcorn, I spent time over a span of one week mixing, baking, frosting and packaging all these sweet treats myself. I am a little out of practice but enjoyed getting back into baking.
These chocolate cakepops with strawberry icing are my go-to cakepops when making them for a party. Who doesn’t love the flavor of chocolate and strawberry together? Red velvet cake pops with homemade cream cheese frosting, another crowd fave.
Strawberry and Original Rice Kitty Treats – a twist on a classic and pink for our Hello Kitty theme of course! These are just as easy to make and you just add a box of strawberry jello mix to the marshmallow and butter mixture.
Instead of cutting a cake, I baked red velvet cupcakes and yellow cake cupcakes with a chocolate cream cheese frosting. Individual cupcakes are easy to grab and go and no one has to wait until the end of the party to have a bite of cake.
These Hello Kitty sugar cookies were a challenge and a half considering I was a first timer to making them. But not a bad freshman attempt. I baked them ahead of time and frosted them night before the party.
I included some Salted Caramel and Cheese popcorn mix as well as Classic Kettlecorn for a little variety on the table.
My baby girl’s birthday cake was made by Just the Frosting Cakes. Our favorite flavors are the chocolate cake with toasted almond frosting.
The boys’ Badtzmaru favors were made with simple takeout boxes filled with treats.
I LOVE these Hello Kitty favor bags for the girls! I loved how colorful and festive they were, and of course they were part of our theme!
My husband made the Hello Kitty and Badtzmaru photo booth cutouts for the kids (and some adults) by printing the images and mounting them on a tri panel. The kids had fun taking photos with them and they made for a nice photo memory of the event.
I hadn’t baked like this in awhile. And truly, this party for our baby girl was a labor of love. But I was really pleased with how the dessert buffet turned out. And more importantly, I was happy that our guests enjoyed themselves and loved all the treats!
This post was written for 53 Weeks by Anna M.