So we're (I am) kind of obsessed with pandas. Pandas are the baby's nursery theme, and so I figured we might as well extend it as the theme for her first birthday. (Yes, it has already been a year!)
I decided to make a panda cake that I had seen in Family Fun magazine. It's basically two eight-inch cakes stacked on top of each other, and then two six-inch cakes stacked on top of each other, and then the six-inch cake stack gets stacked on top of the eight-inch cake stack. And everything is frosted!
You use chocolate sprinkles to cover the top of the eight-inch cake stack, and the ears, eyes, and nose of the panda's head are chocolate wafer cookies. Surprisingly easy to find but a little hard to cut into the right shapes. I did the best I could. Both eyes also have a brown M&M adhered with icing, and the panda's mouth is a red gumdrop.
I gave the "head" of the cake to the baby for the smash cake, and that didn't go over so well, so I was glad that I didn't make the cake gluten-free because that would have been kind of a waste of expensive ingredients.
So for my husband, I followed (as best I could) a Bakerella recipe for panda cupcakes and made them gluten-free. The original recipe had mini cupcakes, but I didn't have a mini cupcake tin, so I just used my regular cupcake tins.
The only thing hard about these was finding white sugar sprinkles. Thank goodness that Target had them and I bought the last bottle!
Everything else is just the gluten-free cake mix, vanilla frosting, chocolate chips, and chocolate sprinkles.
I managed to find black-and-white party hats at Party City (although, the baby didn't really want to wear hers), and I ordered a black tablecloth, black balloons, white balloons, pink balloons, and black curling ribbon from Oriental Trading.
And I made a large number one using posterboard and all of the baby's monthly pictures, which were taken next to a giant stuffed panda bear that sits in her room.
I was pleased with how the cake and cupcakes turned out, especially for it being my first time making them. And the baby didn't care if there were imperfections. (She didn't care about the cake at all...) Not everything looks Pinterest perfect!
If you need more kids' birthday party ideas, check out my Kids' Parties board on Pinterest! There are a lot of ideas for party favors, food, and themes. My favorite is the LEGO theme. I'm hoping that the baby will let me do a LEGO party for her when she's older!
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